


Honored Guests

by madame_faust



Series: Kith and Kin [2]
Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Durin Family, Durin Feels, Dwarf Culture, Dwarves In Exile, F/M, Gen, Kid Fic, Kink Meme, bb!dorf addiction, fun times in ered luin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2017-12-08 17:52:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 84,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_faust/pseuds/madame_faust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to Kith and Kin, where Fíli and Kíli's late father is related to the 'Urs. Inspired by the original prompt, "After growing up in Ered Luin where noble blood didn't change the fact that you had to get up every morning and work at a forge, the lads sometimes identify with their father's kin much better than they do with their mother's."</p><p>A visit to the Blue Mountains by the Dwarves of the Iron Hills, including the famed Dáin Ironfoot himself, stirs up old grudges and bad memories for the exiles of the Lonely Mountain and tests their bond with the Broadbeams of the Ered Luin; little Fíli and Kíli find themselves caught in the middle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing and am making no profit from this story. View the original prompt and fill here: http://hobbit-kink.livejournal.com/5821.html?thread=12595645#t12595645
> 
> I was supposed to write a paper about the intersectionality of gender and race in colonial Africa, but instead I've embarked on a mission to flesh out the tensions between the Dwarves of Erebor and the Dwarves of the Iron Hills. Be prepared for more Dwarf Culture than you can shake a stick at, wordy explosions of headcanon, and (as ever) Durin Family Feels for days.

The sun was shining on the Blue Mountains on a day late in the planting season of Men. The valleys below the mountain villages were filled with a fresh springtime smell carried on the wind, mixing with the scent of freshly tilled earth. Laundry washed clean in the mountain springs fluttered on lines as flowers bloomed along roadways and the buds on tree limbs tentatively unfurled in the sunshine. The perfectly beautiful day outside was a sharp contrast to the mood within the dwarrow-dwellings above the glens populated by Men. Inside one of the Dwarven settlements of the Ered Luin, a tempest was brewing.

With a voice like rolling thunder and dark brows knit like storm clouds, Thorin Oakenshield, King-in-Exile ordered his nephews from the sitting room of their home for the _tenth_ time in as many minutes and desperately wished he could smoke his pipe. All that hope was in vain; in their whirlwind cleaning of the house, his pipe had gotten lost along the way and they were too close to the time of the visit to turn things upside-down in search of it.

The reason for the hubbub was the impending visit of dwarves from the Iron Hills. Representatives of the Seven Kingdoms met periodically to discuss warfare, trade and matters of state throughout Middle-earth every few decades or so. This meeting was in the Ered Luin and would be attended by Dáin Ironfoot himself. It was not expected that the Lord of the Iron Hills would journey so far, but he was a close relation of the Longbeards of Erebor and had not seen his cousins in many years. Thorin and his sister received a letter some weeks prior from Dain which, in addition to giving them some idea of when he would arrive, also expressed his eagerness to meet Dis’s sons, whom he had never laid eyes on before.

A scout from the caravan arrived less than an hour ago to announce that the coming of the Dwarves of the Iron Hills was nigh and the house had been subject to a blur of activity, slamming doors and comings and goings ever since.

Dáin’s letter (now half-illegible after Thorin spilled coffee on it and Kíli used it as scratch paper for drawings) concluded with the usual well-wishes for good health and safety which might prove needed. Thorin was coming very close to wringing the boys’ slender necks as he nearly brained himself on the mantle tripping over a clockwork automaton of a ram pulling a cart that they left lying around.

“Lads, for the last time, put your things in your room,” Thorin demanded, pulling a fresh tunic over his head and tying it to the neck. “And get out of the way!”

Fíli and Kíli were on their feet in an instant, gathering up their toys and racing for the front door, enormous grins on their faces.

“Not outside!” Dwalin, Balin and Thorin shouted at once. Most of the morning was wasted getting the boys scrubbed and dressed in their best clothes and they had _not_ gone through that much effort for it to be ruined in five minutes’ romping amid grass, mud and dirt.

“Go see your mother,” Thorin said, pointing to the door of the room the three of them shared, left ajar. It was no more calm in there, but it was slightly less crowded.

Fíli had never seen his mother look more beautiful or more angry. Mam was dressed very fine, in a long dark blue coat with silver embroidery around the wrists and neck, held together with a thick black leather belt fitted with shiny silver closures down the front. Missus Hervor, little Gimli’s mother, was also dressed up, in a robe of dark green velvet, trimmed in gold that fell all the way down to the top of her boots and was in the process of arranging his mother’s hair, braiding in a heavy silver diadem. Fíli thought his mother looked very regal, like a queen from one of Mister Balin’s books of history - only none of the queens he’d seen in the etchings scowled _that_ deeply or bared their teeth so much when they had their portraits taken.

“Leave it, leave it, I’ll just do it myself” she insisted, batting Missus Hervor’s hands away in a manner very reminiscent of Kíli when he had to have his hair brushed and braided in the morning. Missus Hervor was a Mam herself, which showed when she smacked Fíli’s mother on the back of her head with the brush.

“Stay still,” she scolded, holding the brush up threateningly. “If I leave you to it, it’ll be all over crooked.”

“You’re _pulling_ ,” Dís complained, once again doing a very accurate impression of Kili that made Fili giggle from the doorway.

Hervor grinned at him. “Isn’t your Mam just the silliest dwarrowdam you ever knew?” she asked, her voice light and cheerful. “It’s as though she thinks I’m doing this for my health or out of the goodness of my heart.”

“You’re loving every second of this, you bold-faced liar,” Dís groused. “You’re forever whinging about my hair.”

“Because you never do anything with it!” Hervor dropped the cheery tones and sounded more like herself. “You’ve got this lovely thick hair and it’s two braids there, four beads there, one clasp here - Kíli!” Her attention was diverted by the youngest of the line of Durin who was trying to climb into his mother’s lap. “Did you pull your braids out after Missus Thyra went to the trouble to fix them for you?”

“No,” Kíli shook his head, his loose braids unraveling further. “They _fell_ out.”

“They do,” Dís nodded, picking up a comb and re-brushing Kili’s hair. “That’s why I said I would do it, but oh no, I have to sit very still and allow myself to be _mauled_ \- ”

“OW!” Kíli moaned, twisting out of his mother’s reach. “Mam! You’re pulling!”

“If you’d sit still, it wouldn’t hurt,” Dís snapped back, bopping him on the head with the comb.

“Said the pot to the kettle,” Hervor muttered darkly, giving Dís’s hair a hard tug to make a braid lie flat.

Fíli had absolutely no interest in watching his mother and brother have their hair brushed out. His own hair was thick enough to stay put when it was plaited. As per his uncle’s instructions, he put his toy ram away on top of his clothes press and looked around the room, frowning. Kíli was being tended to by their mother, so he could not play with him. He wasn’t allowed to go outside, he wasn’t allowed to go in the sitting room and there was no one to divert him in the bedroom since everyone was _busy_. Seeing only one option, he climbed up onto his bed and started jumping on the mattress to amuse himself.

“FILI!” his mother and Missus Hervor shouted at once. Before either of them could get up to stop him, he found himself plucked off the bed in mid-air by a pair of strong, but very soft arms.

“Bored, eh?” a kindly voice asked and he saw he’d been caught by Missus Thyra, Mister Bombur’s wife. She put him on her hip, but it was an odd fit since her stomach was round with another baby inside. Mister Bombur and his wife had more children than any family he knew - four already born and one waiting to get born. That was fine by Fíli, the more playmates he had the merrier, only the eldest two were home, so Missus Thyra’s big family was of no use to him whatever right now.

Setting him down on the floor, she smiled and said, “But, look, you’ve just given yourself something to do!” She gestured to the rumbled blankets on the bed and said, “Re-make that, please.”

Fíli looked from the bed to Missus Thyra as if he could not believe she was being entirely serious. “It’s too big,” he complained. It was as big as his mother’s bed since he and Kili shared it and his arms were definitely not long enough to fix the sheets and blankets in the short period of time his mother took to do the job. Swiveling his head around, he caught Dís’s eye, seeking sympathy. There was none to be had.

“Then it’ll keep you occupied for a good long while,” his mother said, with a satisfied smile on her face. “Come, show some heart! Unless you think it’s too much of a challenge for you...”

Frame a chore as a contest, even the most menial of tasks, and any dwarfling worth his wispy little beard will leap at the chance to see it done to the best of his abilities. Drawing himself up in indignation, Fíli marched over to the bed and began smoothing and re-tucking the blankets so the lines were as straight and tight as they’d been before he pounced on them.

“I’ll help!” Kili declared and went to his brother’s aid as soon as his mother let go of his hair. His arms were even shorter, but he was determined. Hervor smiled at them and patted Dís on the top of the head.

“And that’s you done,” she said, satisfied. “Quite lovely, if I do say so myself.” When Dís just grunted and got to her feet, straightening her coat, Hervor folded her arms and spoke in a sing-song, condescending way. “What do we _say_?”

Dís rolled her eyes, but nevertheless replied, “Thanks.”

Thyra giggled and shook her head fondly. “You’re as bad as Dori with little Ori,” she informed Hervor.

“Someone’s got to teach the dwarflings their manners,” the dwarrowdam replied airily, tossing her lustrous hair. It was a point of pride that she was a full seven years older than the Lady Sigdís of the line of Durin, so while Dís outranked her, Hervor out-aged her which meant she did have some right to order her about. “Careful there,” she remarked when Dís’s eyes rolled skyward once again. “You might strain something.”

“Me Ma always said queer expressions get stuck to the face if one isn’t careful,” Thyra said and Kíli stopped tugging on the blankets to look at her with wide eyes.

“Really?” he asked wonderingly. Then, turning up his nose and rolling his eyes back in his head he asked, “Like that? Will that get stuck?”

“Might do,” Thyra nodded, unable to hide her smile. “Best to stop now before you find out for sure. All the dwarves in the Ered Luin will fear a little Orc child’s come and stolen our Kíli away!”

“But then I could take this off,” Kíli pointed out, face returning to its usual state as he tried to tug his tunic out of his belt. Dís knelt on the floor before him to tuck it back in. “ _Mam!_ You heard Miss Thyra! I’m not a dwarfling, I’m an Orc and Orcs don’t got to wear shirts!”

“Sometimes I wonder,” Dís muttered, tightening his belt by one notch to lessen the chance of Kíli undoing his clothes. The tunic was Fíli’s best and too loose around the middle for her youngest boy. Still, it would do, they hadn’t the time or the money to spare to have it re-cut for him. “But Orc or no, you’ll have to play at being a good little lad for me, eh? Since your cousin Dáin expects I have two sons to show him - oh no you don’t, laddie!”

While his mother had his back to him and was preoccupied re-dressing his brother, Fíli took the chance to try to sneak up on her and tackle her. ‘Try’ being the operative word because she spied him out of the corner of her eye and manage to twist out of the way before he jumped on her back. Instead, Fíli caught hold of the sleeve of her coat, falling to the floor with the force of his own momentum and tearing the fabric at the shoulder seam.

“FILI!” The three dwarrowdams chorused the refrain of the hour as one and the dwarfling had the wits about him to look worried.

“I’m sorry!” he apologized immediately, letting go of the fabric and getting to his feet. Dís frowned and twisted around to assess the damage. “Sorry, Mam, I didn’t mean it!”

“Lucky for your backside it’s a clean tear,” she said, sighing. “Make yourself useful and ask your uncle where he put the sewing things.”

Nodding, Fíli bolted out of the room, Kíli hot on his heels. The bedding was all pulled down to one side and the knees of Dís’s trousers were dusty where she’d knelt on the floor. Cursing aloud since her sons were out of earshot, she got to her feet and beat at her trousers so the dust would come off. “I swept this floor yesterday,” she muttered, feeling hands on her arm.

“Don’t move,” Thyra said, having approached her on the other side with a needle firmly between her teeth as she squinted at the tear. “‘Less you’re wanting me to sew through your skin.”

“Wouldn’t be the worst thing’s happened to me all day,” Dís retorted, wishing her hair was loose enough that she could run her fingers through it.

Thyra pawed through the sewing pouch she’d brought along for just such a minor emergency. “I thought I had blue thread,” she muttered. “Black won’t show _too_ much, the color’s so dark, but I hate shoddy stitching.”

“I’ve got a tunic near this color in the dresser,” Dís told her. “Top drawer, just unravel a sleeve. I’ll take the thread from this coat to mend the tunic when all’s said and done.”

“But it’s such a fine coat!” Hervor protested. It truly was, one of the few items of clothing that Dís owned which gave even a hint of her heritage and nobility. It went well with her eyes and even with her short-cut beard, a mark of her status as a widow, she looked terribly comely in it.

Dís gave her a wry look, “And when will I have cause to wear it again? If you’ll remember the last time I got this one out was for your wedding and I haven’t so much as looked at it since.”

Thyra let out a little gasp of surprise and removed a silver necklace, dripping with diamonds and sapphires from the dresser drawer. “What’s this doing in there?,” she asked, letting the gems splay out over her hands. “Why aren’t you wearing it?”

Dís shook her head, mouth twisting in a frown. “Put it away,” she advised. “I thought you were looking for thread.”

“This was a wedding present, wasn’t it?” she pressed, holding it out so Dís might see it better. “From the lads?”

‘The lads’ being Bofur, Bifur and Bombur, the last living dwarves Víli, Dís’s late husband, could claim as kin. Cousins on his mother’s side, they saved their money and used their clout in the mines to have the piece commissioned just for her. It was one of her favorite pieces of jewelry (honestly, one of her only pieces of jewelry), but once again Dís shook her head and bade Thyra put it away.

Hervor nodded in agreement, “Do as she says, lovey, there’s a good lass.”

“But why?” Thyra asked, perplexed. “It looks so well on you.”

Hervor and Dís exchanged an uncomfortable look between them. Neither wanted to be the one to say what they both knew: the necklace was not fine enough to be worn to receive the Dwarves of the Iron Hills. The sapphires were no bigger than Kíli’s thumbnail and the diamonds were the approximate size and shape of raindrops from a summer shower. The chain they were laid into was thin and it only wound around the neck once. It looked like exactly what it was: the finest thing a family of working class miners could afford to gift their friend and cousin on their wedding day.

Dís was not ashamed of it and if she was absolutely certain she could keep her head when someone inevitably commented on it, she would wear it without hesitation. The fact of the matter was, she could make no guarantee that she wouldn’t squarely punch the first mouth that laughed at it. But Thyra looked so honestly confused, neither was she sure she could explain without wounding her friend deeply. Thyra and her kin were Broadbeams, but they’d become as close as family since settling in the Blue Mountains. For a minute, Dís struggled with herself: was it better to risk being made a laughingstock of her royal kindred or see her friend-like-kin’s face color red with embarrassment and anger when Dís explained?

Her heart spoke for her before her mind caught up. “Well, fasten it, then, you think I look so well in it,” she said, sweeping her hair up and turning around so Thyra could clasp it around her neck. Hervor looked surprised, but said nothing; her neck was bare. Better, they agreed privately a few days ago to walk unadorned than wearing the cast-offs from the gem cutter’s shop floor.

Yet Thyra was smiling now and Dís could not help feel weathering insults from dwarves she’d not seen in three decades was easier than paying insult to a dear friend. “There you are,” Thyra said, satisfied. “Very fine, for all your protestations.”

“Thanks,” Dís turned and smiled at her. “You’re a jewel.” Hervor approached silently, a few inches of the pilfered blue thread between her fingers. “Bifur’s looking after the wee ones?”

“Aye,” Thyra nodded, tongue poking out one side of her mouth as she threaded the needle. “You know how much he loves children, weren’t no trouble at all getting him to take ‘em. Matter of fact, he insisted. I’ll collect ‘em just as soon as I’ve finished here.”

“We got the needles, Mam!” Fíli announced proudly, bursting in the bedroom door.

“Wonderful, love. Now put ‘em back,” Dís informed him cheerfully, holding out her arm so Thyra could stitch her sleeve back on.

Fíli and Kíli just looked at one another, mystified. “ _Mams_ ,” Fíli sighed and Kíli nodded.

“Mams,” he agreed, echoing his brother’s tones and the two of them walked back out into the chaos of the sitting room.

Uncle Thorin was nearly fully dressed, though the tunic he’d discarded before was lying on the floor where he’d tossed it aside. “Is that the mending basket?” he asked Fíli, though he ought to know full well it was since he’d told his nephew not three minutes beforehand where to find it.

“Aye,” Fíli said, continuing along his path to his uncle’s room intent on returning it to the space beneath his bed, where he’d found it.

“Well, bring it here, lad,” Thorin said, impatiently, beckoning Fíli over. He sat down on a stool, coat spread across his lap and announced to Dwalin who was leaning against a far wall with his arms folded, trying to stay out of everyone’s way, “I wish it was tomorrow.”

“No you don’t,” he shook his head. “For tomorrow you must spend a full day with ‘em, rather than just half and the day after. And the day after that, to come right down to it.” Kíli tugged at Dwalin’s trouser leg and wordlessly raised his arms over his head. Understanding the silent request he picked the boy up off the floor and settled him against his chest.

“Your Ma fixed that mess you call hair, eh?” he asked and Kíli nodded, leaning his mouth close to Dwalin’s ear.

“Mister Dwalin,” he whispered, as though he was imparting a very great secret. “I’m _bored_.”

Dwalin laughed out loud, despite Thorin’s disgruntled look. “Aye, so are we all, laddie,” he agreed. “And we only stand to become moreso, mark me.”

“Uncle,” Fíli asked, swinging the sewing basket around in his arms.

“What?” Thorin asked, not looking up from patching rip on his cuff.

“Can we play with Bilfur and Catla and Ori and them tomorrow?”

“No,” Thorin said immediately, then paused and amended, “We’ll see.” Despite the fact that they were his heirs, Fíli and Kíli would have little to do at the gathering because they were so young. He would be kept busy enough, as would Balin, his sister and likely Dwalin, Óin and Glóin, but the children could probably be spared. Realizing that the promising of play on the morrow could be used as a bargaining chip, Thorin added, “ _If_ you’re on your best behavior, we’ll see.”

Fíli stopped swinging the sewing basket, cogs in his mind whirling. “If we’re on our best behavior _now_ can we play with Bifur and Catla and Ori and them _later_?” he asked eagerly

Thorin let out a low chuckle despite himself, “No, but be on your best behavior regardless.” He started at the feeling of fingers in his hair and peered over his shoulder to see Balin standing over him, untying his braids with deft hands.

“Did you do these yourself?” he asked, squinting down at Thorin’s head critically.

“And if I did?” Thorin asked, of half a mind to jab Balin in the hand with his needle.

“They’re crooked.”

“Couldn’t be helped,” Thorin declared mulishly. “Hervor took the only mirror in the house - surely it’s not as bad as all that.”

Balin shook his head and did not dignify that question with an answer. “Keep on mending,” he advised, turning his head when Dís’s bedroom door opened. “Ah!” he nodded approvingly as the young women emerged from the doorway. “Lovely.”

All the words Balin possessed in his vocabulary, ‘lovely’ was both a justified assessment and entirely inadequate to describe the beauty of the dwarrowdams in their best gowns. Hervor was widely renowned as a singularly gorgeous specimen with her red curly hair and sleek, full beard. She had a stout, comely figure with skin like poured milk, the smattering of freckles over her broad upturned nose and cheeks the only indication that she spent more time in the sunlight than a dwarf ought to. She could dress in a burlap sack and be counted lovely as a diamond laid in gold, such was her natural radiance.

Dís was more quietly handsome, taller, with deep-set eyes and a long, straight nose. Hervor was round where Dís was slightly squared off, broad though the chest and shoulders, like her brother. Despite her short beard, she looked very well in her rarely-worn coat which brought out the brightness of her eyes and suited her darker complexion. At the very least, Dwalin thought she looked well; he nearly dropped Kíli when she entered the room.

“You mended it!” Fíli cheered, clearly relieved that his larking about hadn’t ruined his mother’s best clothes.

“Missus Thyra mended it,” Dís corrected him, smoothing the fabric and gently tugging on the sleeve to reassure her son that it was well-attached. “You ought to thank her.”

But before Fíli could do anything of the sort, the front door slammed open and Glóin staggered in, breathless, his face as red as his wife’s hair. “Here,” he gasped. “They’re here.”


	2. Chapter 2

In contrast to the scampering about of moments earlier, no one moved upon hearing Glóin’s announcement. Quite the contrary, the assembled dwarves stayed rooted to their spots, only their eyes moved, looking each other up and down slightly nervously. Thorin broke the tension when he asked Glóin, “Did you run all the way from the city walls?”

“Just beyond,” he said, bending double, hands on his knees. “Wanted to make good time - Gimli, that’s enough!”

The red-haired lad, who was really little more than a babe, had ridden the whole way up in a sling on his father’s back and obviously wished the journey to continue. He had two fistfuls of hair in his hands and tugged on them like reins. “Go, pony!” he ordered, but Glóin just looked at his wife in a silent plea for help.

“Come along,” she said, crossing the room and taking her son in her arms.

“No!” Gimli protested loudly, wriggling and reaching for his father. “Pony!”

“Your pony’s got to be watered and stabled,” Hervor informed him, looking her husband over critically. “And washed. You’ve got about six inches of mud on those boots of yours.”

“And all over the floor,” Dís sighed, turning on her heel and walking toward the kitchen. “I’ll get the scrub brush.”

“Leave it; there’s not time,” Thorin said, trying to stand, but Balin pushed him back down.

“Nearly done,” he informed Thorin pleasantly, ignoring the glower that shadowed his face. “There’s not much time, but there is time, thanks to Master Lightfoot over there.”

Thyra emerged from the bedroom and clucked her tongue when she saw Dís preparing to wash the floor. “Oh, now, what are you doing?” she asked even as she made to take the brush and bucket from her. “Not in your finery! It’s no trouble at all, I’ll take care of it.”

“You’ve done so much already,” Dís lamented, tightening her grip on the cleaning things.

“Let me,” Glóin insisted, walking forward a few feet more and leaving a trail of muddy footprints in his wake. “I’m the cause of the mess.”

“Aye, and you’re making more of it with every clomp of your hooves,” Thorin observed. He would have buried his face in his hands out of sheer frustration, but Balin was plaiting his hair so tightly he couldn’t even move his eyebrows. The prospect of spending the better part of the day looking perpetually surprised did not fill him with unmitigated glee. “Whoa, there.”

Glóin stopped moving forward, but was not keen on moving backward and creating more of a trail to clean up so he stood still, resolved not to move again until he was bid to. The impending visit made tempers short and stretched already thin nerves to the breaking point. To the dwarves in exile, appearing before their kinsmen and allies from other clans felt like a charade. They had few of the trappings of a real court about them and they had no homeland to protect nor trade to conduct independent of that which flourished in the Blue Mountains.

Perpetual outsiders, they were, even among their own people. Dwarves were defined by two things: their kinship bonds and the halls they ruled beneath the earth. They had no halls and fully half the kin of the dwarves assembled in that cramped little sitting room were dead. How much easier it would have been to shut themselves away, pretend they had died too, and work their lives away in the Blue Mountains, bolting the gates of their hearts and minds shut to the memory of Erebor.

How much easier, but how much more impossible.

Thyra managed to wrest the bucket and brush from Dís’s hands and inclined her head toward the door. “You can make it up to me later,” she insisted. “Come, come, off you go! You’re looking very handsome, mud or no, and it’s not for me you ought to be wasting your good looks on. You have my word the place’ll shine like a suit of new mail.”

Balin finished with Thorin’s hair, giving the younger dwarf a paternal pat when all was said and done. “You’re a diamond, Goodwife Thyra,” he bowed cordially and she giggled.

“And you lot’re as foolish as rams in springtime,” she replied cheekily as she hurried them out the door. “Never saw a group o’dwarves so shy ‘bout meeting their kin!”

“Ama,” Fíli asked, taking hold of Dís’s hand as they left the complex of dwellings they lived in to make their way outside. “If they’re kin, how come we ain’t seen ‘em afore?”

“ _Haven’t_ seen ‘em,” Thorin corrected him before his sister could answer. “We’ve told you, they live half a world away in the Iron Hills. They come to this part of the earth but rarely - they aren’t here to see _us_ either, they’ve come on matters of state above all.”

Balin regarded Thorin with an expression torn between amusement and exasperation. “True, but I believe from the slew of letters you’ve received the past month, Dáin is quite keen on doing some visiting while he’s here - especially as regards the wee ones.”

Thorin said nothing, his brows drawn together again and his mouth set tight behind his beard. Again, Kíli inclined his head toward Dwalin’s ear - the one that was torn, but heard just as well as his other - and whispered, “D’you reckon as he’ll like us?”

“‘Course he will,” Dwalin replied fondly. “Everyone does - can’t work out just why that is, you being a _terror_ and all.”

“I’m not a terror,” Kíli declared proudly. “Missus Thyra says I’m an Orc.”

Dwalin laughed even as Thorin leveled a disgruntled glare at his nephew. “Ah! That explains quite a few things I’ve been wondering about you, laddie.”

Dís looked up over her shoulder at Dwalin and the pair swapped grins. “Aye, and so it does. Like the howling.”

“And the smell.”

“And the state of his clothes at the end of the day.”

“And how he won’t ‘bide having his hair brushed - ”

“Leave off,” Thorin commanded, quickening his pace to walk ahead of the group. It would be just the thing for his sister and cousin to be tittering about Orcs when they approached. You can clean ‘em up, he thought ruefully, but you still can’t take them anywhere.

Beside his mother, Fíli tugged on her coat skirts and gestured for her to bend over. Dís obliged and her eldest son cupped one hand around his mouth and pointed at his uncle with the other. “And the bad temper,” he added slyly.

Dís laughed loud enough that Thorin looked at her, his contrary expression growing even more displeased, if possible. “Oh, aye,” she nodded, picking Fíli up and placing him on her hip, walking quickly enough to join her brother. “The bad temper _most_ of all.”

“Bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think?” Thorin asked, his expression unchanging.

Dís only laughed again. “You think so?” she asked, nudging him on the arm with her elbow. “Is that puss on your face meant to be dignified? Only you look like you’ve been sucking on lemons.”

Thorin consciously attempted to school his face into a more neutral expression. “That satisfy you?” he asked, intending the tone to be brusque, but his words simply sounded tired.

“Very much so,” she smiled at him and Thorin managed to return the expression, albeit half-heartedly.

The jokes and conversation quieted as the little group made their way to the gathering halls of the court, deep within the mountain. It was a bit of a hike from Dís and Thorin’s quarters in the artisan’s section of the village. Their neighbors in the Ered Luin turned their heads and gawped appreciatively; it was rare to see the royal family so well turned out, most often they were to be seen in work clothes haggling in the market or stopping in for a pint at the pub. The Lady Dís especially was altogether less standoffish and more friendly than her brother and Balin - _Lord_ Balin, they supposed - was as polite to a beggarman as to any he encountered of high rank and noble blood.

When the exiles of Erebor first settled in the Blue Mountains they were not entirely well-received. No one was cruel to them, of course, it would hardly be proper, but neither did they seek to mix among them and there was worry that the superior skills of the Erebor-born craftsmen and women, coupled with their poverty, would drive prices down in the marketplace and lead the whole community into starvation. Time proved them to be no hindrance and most of them were so ordinary seeming in their plain clothes and good manners that it was easy to forget, after so many years of residence, that they were of noble stock at all.

Looking at them now, together and bedecked in fine clothes as they were, was a powerful reminder that they were and had always been somewhat set apart.

Fíli noticed the glances and the whispers before Kíli did and once again he was whispering to his mother. “Mam, folks are staring,” he informed her.

“Aye, so they are,” she replied easily, setting him on his feet and taking him by the hand. “Step lively, love, and don’t waste breath on talking.”

Dwalin also put Kíli down on his feet so he could take his mother’s hand and walk alongside her as they approached the gates of the court in the heart of the Blue Mountains. It was no accident that they settled in the largest village closest to the seat of government; even if Thorin’s power was diminished, his office was still well respected and he occasionally was called upon to sit in councils and contribute his opinion, with Balin usually attending in an advisory capacity. Always he was present for the trade talks. This he considered his most vital duty for, after years of near starvation and homelessness, he would never see his people go without now that they were settled.

A group of horsemen were gathered by the gate, attired in gleaming armor. This time it was Fíli and Kíli’s turn to drop their jaws and stare with wide eyes. The armor their uncle and kinfolk wore was old, much patched and their suits of armor cobbled together from whatever they’d been able to buy that was cheap, but sturdy. These riders were bedecked in mail hauberks that glittered like diamonds in the sunlight and their plate armor was new and undented. They had only seen such on the figures Mister Bifur made for sale on Durin’s Day Eve, painted and polished.

Their mother bent low and whispered to them, “Close your mouths, my little codfish; _now_ who’s staring?”

The dwarf who was positioned at the head of the riders spoke to his troops. “Dismount!” he ordered in a deep, clear voice, roughened by the distinct burr of the Eastern Dwarves, different from the lilt of those who lived in the West. He himself remained seated and turned his pony back to the road. “I’ve kin to inquire of, I shall return within the hour!”

“Save your inquiries,” Thorin called from the ground and the mounted dwarf swiveled his helmeted head around to face him. “Hail, Dáin of the Iron Hills, honored Lord and most noble kinsman.”

The helm was off in an instant and tossed to a nearby retainer. The dwarf was young and handsome, with a long black beard and keen blue eyes, his features broad, strong and ruddy with travel. He dismounted his horse a easily with only a hint of awkwardness as he stood upon the ground. His gait was steady as he walked toward Thorin, arms outstretched; only a faint clanging sound as his left leg struck the rocks betrayed anything unusual about his person. “Thorin Oakenshield!” he cried happily, “King Under the Mountain and worthy kinsman, hail! How fare you?”

“Well, well,” Thorin replied as the two clasped arms and knocked their brows together in a gesture meant to convey their continued vitality and eagerness in greeting. Dáin’s smile only broadened when he saw Dís standing beside her brother.

Once again he stretched his arms out and said, “Ah, fairest of the fair!” and they too embraced, though Dís took more care when their heads met; the weight of her diadem might dent his skull if she hit him too forcefully. All the best dwarrow adornments could also double as weapons, in a pinch. “My Lady Dís, it’s been an age! Or is it Sigdís now you’re well grown up?”

“Dís, as ever it was, certainly among kin,” she said and smiled back, but the expression did not quite meet her eyes. When she let go of her sons’ hands to take Dáin by the arms, they immediately latched on to her coat skirts in a shy manner that, until that moment, was entirely foreign to them.

Dáin spotted them immediately. “And are these my young cousins?” he asked again in that booming voice that might well shake the mountains around them. “By my beard, I’d heard they were wee babes! These lads are practically grown.”

He knelt on the ground before them and his smile, coupled with the kindness in his eyes, made the boys loosen their grips on their mother, though Kíli looked to his brother before he stepped forward and remembered his manners.

“I’m Fíli,” the elder said, nudging his brother in the ribs.

“Kíli,” the younger supplied, still wide-eyed in awe at the proper warrior who knelt before them like they were somebody.

“At your service,” the brothers said at once, bowing just like they’d been taught. That act of bravery over, the immediately stepped back to stand by their mother, though they kept their hands by their sides.

“Dáin of the Iron Hills,” their cousin inclined his head and placed his right hand over his heart. “At yours. And I’ve a little something for you lads, haven’t I, Nar?”

One of his companions came forward with two parcels, wrapped in velvet. Dáin took them from him and handed them over to the children. “Might be too small for you,” he commented as the boys unwrapped them. “But I suspect you’ll get good use out of them all the same.”

They were a pair of matching daggers, the hilts laid in with blood-red garnets and dark blue sapphires. The boys’ faces lit up with utter delight. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Fíli gushed eyes, sparkling. He held it up for his mother to take a closer look. “D’you see, Mam? D’you see?”

Kíli was tugging on the hem of Thorin’s tunic and presenting his dagger for his uncle to view. “I never seen nothing so fine afore!” he declared. “Not that was mine to keep!”

“Don’t wave it about; you’ll have your eye out,” Thorin advised him, pursing his lips and looking at his sister who was bent over looking closely at Fíli’s present.

“Very fine,” she said finally, smiling tightly. “Our cousin is generous.”

“No trouble,” he replied easily, rising to his feet. “Just a small something for your lads.”

Small something indeed. Both brother and sister noticed - and Dáin’s men too, if the one called Nar’s wandering eyes spoke for the whole lot of them - that the gemstones set in little weapons, intended as playthings for children, were larger than those laid in the grandest piece of jewelry owned by their lady mother.


	3. Chapter 3

It was some hours yet until sundown and the feast to welcome the visitors from the East, North and South would begin. After Dáin paid his respects at the tomb of Freya, Queen Under the Mountain in Exile the decision was made to pass the time until evening at Dís and Thorin’s residence. They’d been expecting this and the rules of hospitality dictated that they could not refuse without causing great insult, but neither were particularly pleased to return to their hope with their cousin and a select few of his fellow noblemen.

Dáin realized they hadn’t any horses among them and so he and his kinsmen left their mounts to be stabled and proceeded through town on foot. It would hardly do for the Lord of the Iron Hills to ride head and shoulders above the King Under the Mountain. The walk was leisurely enough, giving the townsfolk plenty of time to peek out of windows and doorways, hush their conversations and generally memorize the clothes and gaits of the party to gossip about when work became tedious and the nights were long.

Fíli and Kíli were no less overt in the glances that they spared at their noble cousin’s left leg, the foot and calf of which were booted, but the knee was not and shone dully in the afternoon sunlight. He was not called ‘Ironfoot’ for nothing, after all.

The lads were burning with curiosity, but also slightly wary of this stranger from the East. The daggers they were permitted to tuck in their belts, so long as they promised to be careful and instantly endeared him to them - dwarflings were apt to attach themselves to anyone who came bearing dangerous presents - but they did not know him and their jaws which would set to wagging about anything that happened to cross their minds all times of the day or night, were curiously shut to questions and observations.

Naturally, Dáin noticed their stares before long, he smiled at the boys and remarked, “Not a bad trade-off, I don’t think, flesh for metal. If either of you was to test the strength of your new daggers upon me, I’d be no worse for wear.”

Thus their dammed up mouths were breached and the words flooded out immediately

“How long’ve you had it?” Fíli asked, cocking his head to the side and wishing Dáin had foregone his boot that he might have a better look at it.

“ _Mam_ ,” Kíli tugged on his mother’s coat skirts, still playing at being the shyer of the two. “Can I have one? Could you make me one?”

“Very likely I could, but I won’t. Not ‘less you have need of it,” Dís replied mildly. “Which, if ever you have, will not be for many years yet, let’s hope.” There was no shame in bearing the wounds of battle proudly among her people. Her own father never covered the scars and crater upon his face where he’d lost an eye in a frightful battle with goblins unless they were among Men who were squeamish about such things. Dáin had been very young indeed when he sustained the wound that took his leg. So young it should be counted a blessing his fate was not far worse.

“Ah, young Master Kíli,” Dáin chuckled, noting that child’s pout, “I’d not be too envious that your mother won’t make one for you. Was a nuisance to walk in before I got the measure of it. And I’ve had twice as much practise as you’ve had years below this earth.”

Kíli thought for a moment, his frown deepening and a crease appeared between his dark eyebrows. “But if I got one _now_ ,” he reasoned, “then by the time I was old as you, I’d be an expert!”

Dáin laughed at that, a hearty rumble that got Fíli giggling right along with him and conceded, “Aye, so you would.” Giving his attention to the older brother, he added, “I’ve had it more than forty years now. Gift of the battlefield at Azanulbizar it was - your uncle fared rather the better of the two of us.”

Thorin’s expression, which until that moment looked kindly enough since Dáin was getting along so well with his nephews, darkened to a scowl and his eyes fixed ahead at some point in the road beyond them. If he had less care for his station as king and kinsmen he might have bitterly asked, _Which uncle?_ but he bit his tongue and clenched his jaw against the rebuke.

Dáin was of an age with Frerin. Or, rather, he would have been had Thorin’s brother not perished on the battlefield and thus been condemned to eternal youth. It was the sort of fate one heard tell of in the songs of old, young dwarves with gleaming swords and shining axes entering their first battle and being showered with glory for ever after. Frerin’s life was hardly a song and none of the dead of Azanulbizar were memorialized in anything save ballads and dirges.

Dáin, on the other hand, was the sort of dwarf that was sung about in marching songs, meant to embolden the hearts of warriors before battle and build up pride among their people in times of peace. The shining young prince who marched into the fray with axes flashing in the sun, slew a hundred orcs and returned home triumphant. Dáin was a renowned war hero, Lord of the Iron Hills and legend all before he’d seen the rise and fall of a century.

And Frerin? Lively, loving and utterly _ridiculous_ Frerin was a memory. A ghost who haunted Thorin’s mind, nothing more than a quick grin, a clever quip and a hearty laugh that was getting harder and harder to remember with each passing year.

Looking at his cousin now, with his gleaming new armor and full beard, cut in grief upon his father’s death, but long since grown out again, Thorin found two warring emotions fighting in his breast for supremacy. The first was anger, of course. Anger was his closest friend and confidante all these years, but better hidden and just as strong was a pervasive sense of jealousy.

It was almost impossible for Thorin to see Dáin without hearing some childish voice in his mind screaming despairingly, _That should have been mine!_ All of it, the glory, the accolades, the _throne_. It was not that Thorin was thought meanly of amongst their people. His slaying of the Pale Orc and his taking up the charge for the final routing was admirable and there were many who would call him a hero, but Thorin could hardly feel pride in himself for it. He was too late, after all. Too late to save his grandfather. Too late to save his brother. And all of them were too late to reclaim Moria. Centuries and centuries too late.

And too unworthy. When the final fires from the funeral pyres burned away and the living rose from their pallets within the healing tents for the journey home, Thorin found himself the leader of his people who could only wander. If his own father could not find it within himself to remain at Thorin’s side, by what right could he lead his people? If his own father would not stay and fight for him, what dwarf would?

Sometimes, in the dead of night when the wind howled outside their stone walls, he wondered just why so many remained. _They have nowhere else to go_ , he answered himself, but such a response brought him no solace.

And what of those who did not remain under his rule, feeble though it was, but _by_ him as well? Dís, Dwalin and Balin chief among them. Why did they stay?

 _Because you are our king and our kinsman_ , he knew they would reply dutifully if he ever grew bold enough or desperate enough to ask, but he did not believe that was the whole truth of it. Very probably they stayed so that he would not suffer the burden of kingship alone. If he was alone, Thorin knew and was sure his kinfolk felt the same, he would collapse under the weight of it all.

It seemed Dáin was in no danger of collapse. He stood tall and proud, laughed with Thorin’s sister-sons and if he thought their little home in the Blue Mountains small and mean, he gave no indication of it. Nothing troubled him. Thorin felt, on bad days, that he had little else left to him but his troubles.

“Lemons,” Dís muttered in a sing-song way as she passed by him to open the door and bid their guests welcome. Thorin sighed and tried to smooth his brow and mouth; he must have been frowning again.

Dís opened the door to find Thyra on the other side of it, her expression all surprise in her jade green eyes. “Back so soon?” she asked, stepping aside that they might cross the threshold.

“Not so soon you haven’t had time to get the place in order,” Dís noted approvingly. The three room apartment was close quarters, but clean enough. They had few ornaments to clutter the place, but the walls were whitewashed and the floor bore no trace of the mud Glóin dragged in earlier.

“A promise is a promise,” Thyra replied sweetly. “I’ll leave you to - ” But no sooner had she begun to take her leave that a heavy sable cloak was unceremoniously dropped from Dáin’s shoulders into her arms.

“Your housemaids - ah, _matrons_ ,” he corrected himself, noting the swelling of her belly beneath her coat, “are awfully pretty here.” Dáin’s men, following their liege lord’s example, also handed their cloaks to Thyra who accepted them automatically, cheeks flushing pink all the while. “One of the attractions of the Blue Mountains? A main point in favor of settlement, I imagine.”

Dáin’s easy expression tensed just a little when no one among the Erebor-born laughed at his joke. Even little Fíli and Kíli did not laugh or speak at this gross breach of etiquette. Despite her helpful nature Missus Thyra was technically guest and though guests in a dwarrow household might make themselves at home and pitch in to cook the meal, set the table, or pour the mead, one must _never_ treat them as a servant, but as family.

Thyra _was_ family for all intents and purposes, so Thorin cleared his throat as Dís rushed forward to take the cloaks from her friend’s arms. “Dáin, Lord of the Iron Hills,” he began and upon hearing the words of the formal introduction, Dáin’s traveled-reddened face blanched noticeably. “This is Goodwife Thyra, espoused of Bombur, a miner by trade. She herself is a pastry cook who works in her family’s shop in the village.”

Mortification was writ deep in Dáin’s good-natured features and Thorin was forced to revise his earlier appraisal of his cousin. Embarrassment appeared to be one of the few things that could trouble him.

“She’s a dear friend,” Dís managed to add through gritted teeth. “Her husband was kin to my late husband, on his mother's side. And she was just leaving.”

Remembering his manners at last, Dáin inclined his head in Thyra’s direction and gave her a very short bow. “Well...Well met,” he said, all of a sudden sounding quite young and uncertain, not at all the commanding leader of dwarrow warriors sung about and boasted of among Durin’s folk.

“Well met,” Thyra replied faintly. Having never met nobility before - at least not such nobility as one had to bow and scrape to - she was at a loss for how to proceed. Did one shake hands with nobility? Certainly not, as Lord Dáin did not offer his. In the end she settled on an awkward bob of the head and made her way to the door as quickly as she could without breaking out into a sprint.

Dís followed to hang the cloaks on pegs by the door. Once her right hand was free she began signing ‘Thank you,’ and ‘I’m sorry,’ over and over in rapid iglishmek until Thyra held up both of her hands in a gesture which meant, ‘It is nothing.’

Clearly it was a bit more than ‘nothing’ judging by the way Thyra bolted as soon as she’d crossed the threshold for the street, like a skittish filly who was escaping being bridled. Dís rather wanted to join her and wished with all her heart she could run, fast as she could, shedding her fine coat and meagre jewels as she went. Her fingers itched for an occupation to take her mind off the humiliating scene she’d been partied to.

If she warmed her hands with work some of the blood might leave her flushed face and the sweat that clung to her back beneath her tunic would be the result of hard labor, not cold shame. But she had to play the noblewoman now, not the artisan. Rather than run to the forge, she shut the door behind her and offered her cousin and his attendants some refreshment, which Dáin accepted with more gratitude than was strictly called for under the circumstances.

It was a pity the kitchen and the sitting room were all one; she would have preferred a moment of privacy to collect herself. Then again she might have been lucky, she thought cynically as Balin joined her in collecting mugs and pouring small beer. At least she could turn her back on them all for the moment; had she been a true princess, they would have had real servants and there would be no respite for her whatsoever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Dáin, he's got a bad habit of opening his mouth and jamming his big iron foot right in there, doesn't he? I have a bad feeling that Thorin is going to spend this entire visit brooding. Let's leave them to wallow in their own awkwardness for a little while, the next chapter we'll be spending some time with the 'Urs!


	4. Chapter 4

Being with child was not a condition that lent itself well to long distance running, but Thyra made the journey from Dís’s apartment near the marketplace to her home closer to the mines in record time. It seemed humiliation prompted an unknown athleticism within her. Slowing down and straightening her coat before she proceeded inside, she drew herself up and took a deep, steadying breath. If the youngest children were about, it would not do for them to see her so distressed. They would only become upset themselves and there was no sense in the lot of them being out of sorts.

Knocking to announce her presence since bursting through doorways unannounced could startle Bifur a bit, she poked her head in and smiled to see her kinsman on the floor with Bilfur and Catla letting them braid his hair with varying degrees of skill. Bilfur showed more of a knack than his younger sister who had her tongue poking between her teeth with concentration.

“Ma!” her son cried, spying her first and running up to her eagerly. “Can we play with Fíli and Kíli now? Is it all done with?”

“Just beginning, rather,” she informed him somewhat apologetically. “I don’t reckon as we’ll be seeing much o’them the next few weeks, dearie.”

Catla groaned, but seemed determined to tie off her cousin’s hair before she approached her mother. “That’s _ages_ ,” she whinged. “Why can’t we see ‘em no more?”

 _Not never_ , Bifur signed, pausing to reposition Catla’s hands. _You see them soon._

“Weeks isn’t ‘soon,” Bilfur complained, signing as he spoke. “Weeks is _weeks_.”

“Where are the wee ones?” Thyra asked, looking around and not seeing her youngest two crawling or toddling about the fringes of the room. “Don’t tell me they’ve escaped.”

Bifur chuckled. _Sleep,_ he signed and Thyra smiled, pleased. It was a skillful dwarf who managed to get the little ones to drop off for an afternoon nap and she reflected, not for the first time, that it was a pity Bifur would never marry. He would have been a wonderful father.

Catla finished his hair and surveyed her handiwork with a frown. “Done,” she said, unenthusiastically. “Only it’s not very pretty.”

Bifur gave the girl a smile and reassured her, _Good enough. You learn._

Catla beamed at him and kissed him sweetly on the cheek, careful of the embedded axe. Bifur rested a large, rough hand on her back and she sprang away after a moment, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Did you see a king when you was there, at least? Was he handsome, like in the songs?”

Thyra was not entirely sure how to respond to that query and Bifur seemed to notice something in her cheerful facade fade, for he gave her a very searching look as he hefted himself off the floor. “I don’t think their cousin’s a king, lovey,” she said at last. “A Lord - and afore you ask, no, I don’t know what’s the difference ‘twixt the two. But he was handsome, rather.” _And a damned presuming sort._

Catla seemed satisfied with that answer and nodded dreamily. Mister Balin of that clan let her have lessons, or at least listen in since she was a mite too young to be learning letters - if she did, she would be the first of her family to do so and the thought of having a daughter who could read puffed Bombur up with no small measure of pride. Mostly, though, she went to his apartment with little Fíli, Kíli and Ori to listen to the older dwarf’s stories. She liked the ones with handsome warriors and their lovely, deadly queens the best.

Bilfur was of a very different temperament and would rather pretend to be a warrior than listen to stories and learn songs about them. “Reckon as Ori’ll be able to play?” he asked her mother, impatiently.

“Reckon so,” Thyra nodded. “Best make haste if you want to catch him, you know how his brother is ‘bout the lad being out and about after sunset.”

Both dwarflings needed no more encouragement than that to run for the door, slamming it behind them on their way out. It was a respite Thyra sorely needed for she slumped a bit in the shoulders and took a seat at the kitchen table, head falling in her hands. A chair scraped nearby and she found herself looking into Bifur’s kindly dark eyes. “ **You are weary?** ” he asked in Khuzdul, pausing before he took his seat and mimed drinking.

“Ah, no, let me,” Thyra tried to rise, but Bifur’s gentle hands were on her shoulders urging her to sit. “Alright, if you insist. Tea’d not go amiss, ‘specially not with a little something for me nerves.”

Bifur did cock his head down at her oddly for he knew his cousin’s wife was not easily ruffled.

“It’s nothing,” she said, then paused, considering. “It’s...oh, I don’t know why I’m so bothered, it’s an honest mistake was made, no more.”

“ **Drink** ,” Bifur said as kindly as his voice could sound in their ancient tongue. “ **We will speak after.** ”

The kettle boiled in the hearth just as Bifur and Bombur came in, covered in grime as usual and stripping their boots and outer garments off before they tracked dirt in the house. “Mutiny, eh?” Bofur asked. “Wee scamps do a runner on you?”

“Two ran, two’re sleeping,” Thyra said, nodding her thanks to Bifur as he pressed a mug of tea into her hands, spiked with a shot of whiskey that warmed her throat and eased her nerves considerably on the way down. “You just missed ‘em.”

“Tea and all?” Bombur let out a low whistle and bent to kiss his wife as Bifur filled another mug. “I’m impressed, that’s quite the welcome home.”

“See ‘em soon enough for supper, I expect,” Bofur said and Thyra thought nothing of her brother-in-law inviting himself to their table. He and Bifur were always welcome, what sense was there in sending him and Bifur away to their lodgings when it was so much pleasanter when all the family ate together? On his way to the washroom, Bofur got a good look at his sister-in-law’s face and stopped in his tracks. “Everything alright?”

Thyra let out a nervous little titter, scrubbing her hand over her face. “Honestly, it’s fine. Fine fine fine. Nothing to be riled about.”

“But you are,” Bombur observed, not bothering to wash his hands when he took a seat by his wife and held one of her hands in both of his. She never really minded the smudges and did not now, even though she waved her free hand about like she was batting a meddlesome fly away.

“Well...you forget, don’t you?” she said, shrugging a little uncomfortably. “What they are and what we are and how we’re not hardly the same.”

“What who are?” Bofur added, perching on the table and swinging his feet idly over the floor. Bifur plucked his cousin’s hat from his head and swatted him with it, prompting Bofur to hop off. “Dís and Thorin?”

“ _Lady_ Dís and _King_ Thorin,” she corrected him, coloring pink again as she remembered her embarrassment. “Their fine cousin Lord Dáin mistook me for a chambermaid and tossed his cloak at me when he come in without so much as a by-your-leave.”

Bifur made a low, discontented noise in the back of his throat while Bombur blanched and patted his wife’s hand sympathetically. Thyra was of good standing in the community, her family’s shop had been well thought of for centuries. Though he could not claim ownership of the mines in which he worked, Bombur took a hand in their construction, designing supports and pathways that were well-made. They’d not had a cave-in of the sort that took their Víli’s life since he moved up in the ranks. They were not of a grand house, but they were respectable and they worked for themselves and their families, not at the behest of a master whose indenture could not be broken. Their families never had wealth, but they did have independence.

“Oh, dear,” he sighed, but had to cut his reassurance short to glare at his brother who was trying to hold in a laugh, but his shaking shoulders and crinkled eyes betrayed him. “It’s not funny!”

“It is a bit,” Bofur pointed out, grinning carelessly at all of them. “Dís and Thorin must’ve been melting with shame, I’d pay good money to see the look on his face - did you get a glimpse of him?”

“He looked much as he always does: vexed,” Thyra said, pursing her lips and giving Bofur a swat of her own. “And not on my account neither for he looked so before they even come in the house. He was quick to correct the mistake.”

“Well, of course,” Bombur said, sounding offended that his wife would assume Thorin would let the misapprehension stand. They were friends and a sort-of kin, it would be unmannerly to do anything else. “Did their cousin seem sorry for the mistake.”

“He didn’t apologize,” Thyra replied, but quickly added, “He seemed shamed, a bit. Conducted himself proper after, or proper for a king or a lord or whatever he might be. I ran out the place, I was so scarlet. Poor Dís tried apologizing, but I hardly let her, I was halfway out the door already.”

“Sorry situation,” Bombur sighed. “I’m sure they’re all very red about it, but I s’pose, him being used to servants and all, it was a...natural thought. For one such as him, however wrong it was.”

“Nah, but just think!” Bofur said, still trying to persuade his family to find the humor in the situation. “He’s thinking you’re some serving maid or what have you and you’re practically his family! Joke’s on him.”

“ **There is no joke** ,” Bifur said sternly to Bofur whose smile finally faded a bit. “ **They felt shame, we felt shame and there is no laughter to be had from it.** ”

Bofur frowned, chastened and shrugged as he finally made his way to wash up. “Grumpy geezers, the lot of you,” he muttered, shaking his head.

Bombur gave his brother’s back a very disgruntled look before inquiring of his wife, “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” she said. Then, when his look of concern did not fade, “ _Really._ Just a bit of embarrassment - not like I never blushed afore, eh? S’just...you see folks every day and there’s things you know to be true of ‘em, but you don’t always think on.”

“Sure, sure,” Bombur nodded in understanding. “I hardly ever recollect they’re...what they are most days, though I s’pose I should, but what’s there to make you think of it? ‘Sides from Balin’s speech, but he’d probably have a knack for learning no matter how low or high he were born.”

“You know what _I_ think,” Bofur said, braids undone, washing his hair with a dingy towel.

“Nah, but I’m sure I haven’t long to wait to find out,” Bombur tried to suppress the amusement in his voice and did not quite manage it.

“ _I_ think you’ve got caught up in all that Longbeard moroseness,” Bofur said, hanging the towel around his shoulders. He’d unlaced the top of his tunic so it hung down around his waist, held up by his belt. Once again he attempted to sit on the kitchen table, but was shoved off by Bifur.

 _For eating_ , he signed. _No sitting._

“You’ve _all_ got caught up in that Longbeard moroseness,” Bofur repeated, holding his head high as water dripped into his mustache. “Visiting kin should be fun, not burdensome! And they been running around like headless chickens for nigh o’er a week!”

“When your kin got a whole mountain range to call their own, you take care in tidying,” Thyra shook her head, as ever never sure whether her brother-in-law was being serious.

“You don’t just shove your worst togs under the bed and call it a day,” Bombur added, giving his brother a very frank look as he got up to start the meat searing for supper.

Thyra cracked a genuine smiled and giggled. “Matter o’fact, they _did_ do that,” she admitted.

“They didn’t!” Bofur grinned hugely in delight. “Did they?”

“Aye,” Thyra nodded. “Tucked the whole sewing basket ‘neath Thorin’s bed - and then some!” Genuinely mirthful, she added, “Don’t suppose I blame him for thinking I was a maid - by the Maker, if I left the house in the state it was in when they ran off to meet their cousin, they’d have more to blush over than botched introducing!”

Even Bifur laughed at that, though it was good humored laughter, not meant to scorn. “There now, _y'see?_ ” Bofur asked smugly, crossing his arms over his chest. “Not so much difference ‘tween highborn and low when you get right down to it. ‘Cept they’ve got a fine feast to look forward to and all we got is Bombur’s cooking.”

Bombur flung a skillet with deadly accuracy at his elder brother’s head. “No one’s making you eat it. Who said you was invited to partake? There’s plenty who’d eat your portion.”

“ _You’d_ eat my portion, you mean,” Bofur said, lobbing the skillet back, but Bifur caught it and handed it to his youngest cousin, putting an end to the nonsense then and there.

The door of the house slammed open and Catla and Bilfur came running in out of breath.

Bombur looked from the dwarflings to his brother, shaking his head. “They’re too quick for me, they’d inhale it ‘fore I even looked twice at your plate.”

“Ma! Da! Ma! Da! Uncle! Cousin! Ma!” The pair jumped up and down, hooting and hollering so much it was hard to tell which voice was which.

“Ori said - ”

“An’ I called him a liar!”

“Ori _said_ \- ”

“An’ I said he gave no good account of it!”

Catla smacked her brother hard in the mouth. “Shut it!” he said while he howled so loudly in exaggerated pain that he woke his siblings in the next room. Thyra sighed and rose to her feet to retrieve them, leaving her husband and his kinsmen to answer her children’s blathering.

“Ori. _Said_ ,” Catla repeated, beginning her words very precisely, then piling them all together one on top of the other, “Thatwe’renottoseeFíliandKílitiltheirkinfolkaregonecoswe’rebeneath’em.”

“And I said he was a liar,” Bilfur said, drawing his hands away from his mouth once he’d determined that there was no blood that might win him sympathy with his elders. “We’re kin to ‘em too, ain’t we?”

Bifur looked mystified and Bombur turned toward his children, cocking his head curiously to the side. “Come again? And slower, this time, I got dust in me ears as makes me half deaf.”

“I heard ‘em,” Bofur said, crouching down before the dwarflings. “And you two can tell Ori he ain’t their Ma and he got no right to say who them lads see and don’t see. Reckon you’ll be romping with ‘em both tomorrow ‘fore midday and if you’re not, I’ll eat me hat.”

The two dwarflings exchanged incredulous looks and spoke at once, eyeing their uncle _very_ skeptically. “Really truly?” Bilfur asked suspiciously, suspecting his uncle was having him on.

“Shake on it,” Catla said thrusting her hand under Bofur’s nose. “So’s we know you’re not having fun.”

Bofur very solemnly shook both his niece and nephew’s hands at once, Catla’s right and Bilfur’s left, saying, “I swear.”

“ _By_...?” Catla asked expectantly, squeezing his fingers as tight as she could. With parents as sweet natured as Bombur and Thyra, folks wondered where she got that fierce temper from. Bofur couldn’t say, but he admired it, no mistake.

“By the hammers an’ chisels of our ancestors,” her uncle vowed seriously. “If I don't find you raising merry havoc with Fíli and Kíli tomorrow, I’ll eat me aul hat to the lining.”

“I’ll boil it up for your noontime meal,” Bombur offered, only half-joking. “Make it go down easier.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this one should end with 'dun dun DUN,' but I'll save it for a chapter where something REALLY dire happens. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the 'Urs! Bilfur and Catla first turned up in _Out of the Mouths of Babes_ , I couldn't resist bringing them back. Oh! And the bit about Bombur being an architect/engineer is not my headcanon (well, it is NOW), it's Stephen Hunter's! I didn't think it was possible for me to love these dwarves more, but after I saw those behind the scenes vids of the families, I do!


	5. Chapter 5

The welcoming feast was appropriately grandiose and magnificent, as befitted a gathering of the highborn of the noble Kingdoms that remained beneath the earth. The torches burned bright, there was mead and ale enough to fill all the oceans of the earth and so many servings of roast boar, venison and cattle that Dís wondered if there were any animals left in the surrounding forest and farms.

Fíli and Kíli had never seen the like before in their lives and would have eaten until they made themselves sick, had Thorin and Dís not taken a firm hand in telling them when enough was enough. They and little Gimli were the youngest dwarves by decades at the gathering - and so brought only because their regular minders were also in attendance. Hervor and Glóin left for home shortly after the dishes were cleared away, leaving Fíli and Kíli alone to lap up all the attention. This arrangement suited the lads just fine as they were cooed and fussed over by distant cousins and even unrelated dwarves from different clans.

Dís was very proud of her sons and did not mind answering the same questions over and over again, “Aye, close in age.” “Twenty-seven and twenty-two.” “I have heard it said yellow hair’s lucky once or twice. Always good to be reminded.” Her court manners were in bad need of polishing, speaking of her children was a task she could perform at length without disgracing herself or Thorin.

The only spot of face-flushing awkwardness came when Dwalin stayed Kíli’s hands before he could knock over everyone’s flagons of mead in the course of retelling some wild story, to Dáin’s apparent delight. Dwalin was fairly positive he would not be half so taken with the lads once one of them spilled his grog on his fine coat.

“Careful,” he advised, tugging Kíli back from where he’d been leaning over the table. Settling the boy on his lap, Dwalin said, “You can give the telling from here - you’ve got a powerful set of lungs for such a wee thing.”

Kíli obeyed, settling down in Dwalin’s lap and proceeded to pick up right where he left off. A Blacklock lord from the South grinned broadly at that beneath a beard that had been oiled and handsomely braided in tight coils. “If only I could get my own son to mind so well!” he observed approvingly. Winking at Dís he added, “Your husband’s got a gift, no doubt.”

Dís could have melted through the floor. Thorin opened his mouth immediately to clear up the misconception, but Dís beat him to it, managing an almost gracious smile that was just a little drawn around the edges. “Not my husband, but a dear kinsman,” she said, watching the dwarf’s dark eyes widen in surprise. “My husband’s twenty-three years dead this summer.”

“I am grieved to hear it,” he said, inclining his head respectfully. “Where did he fall?”

It was a common, even polite question to ask when mention was made of the deceased among dwarves. It gave the widow and children the opportunity to speak the name of the beloved departed, to boast of his great deeds in battle and give a precise telling of how many foes were slain before his spirit departed to the Halls of Waiting.

“In one of the old mines on the northernmost range,” she said, feeling all eyes upon her, but determined to keep her composure.

“Ah, goblins?” the dwarf asked sympathetically.

“Nay, coal,” Dís replied cooly and finally comprehension dawned for the lord and he seemed embarrassed at last.

Once again, he said he was grieved to hear it - whether he was more grieved about Víli’s death or the fact that a noblewoman of the line of Durin made a match with a common miner was unclear. “I had been wondering where all that golden hair came from on the elder,” he said finally, chancing a joke. “I was worried you’d been made a cuckold, as Men call it, sir.”

There was general laughter, but Dwalin did not even smile. “It’s well you kept your thoughts in your head,” he said, almost casually, but there was steel in his eyes. “For you would have paid my Lady grievous insult and been made to answer for it.”

There was a tense moment that followed, this time accompanied by no tittering laughter. Even Kíli kept quiet, peering up at Dwalin with an almost wondering look on his face. Long had he heard rumors of the terrifying Dwalin, son of Fundin, orc-slayer, goblin-crusher, the stuff of nightmares to his enemies. He thought it was a great joke for _his_ Mister Dwalin was all care where he was concerned. Now Kíli had a better idea of how those rumors got started.

The tables and benches in the center of the hall were cleared away as the fiddles, drums and pipes started up, saving them all what promised to be a dreadful row. Brawls were not uncommon at feasts - indeed, they were to be expected, even eagerly anticipated - but blacking a visiting nobleman’s eye over an unintended slight was a little extreme, even by dwarvish standards.

Dáin was up from the bench like a shot, extending a hand to Dís and bowing low. “A dance, milady?”

She wanted so badly to refuse - she wasn’t _nearly_ drunk enough for this - but it would be rude to do so. Dís supposed it was better that Dáin asked her and not Thorin, though her brother’s perpetual frown and furrowed brow silently discouraged their peers from making conversation with him, never mind asking to dance. It was her lot in life to be the friendlier of the two of them. Swallowing her annoyance and hiding her irritation behind a bland smile, Dís took Dáin’s hand, certain she could feel a pair of dark eyes boring into her the whole time. Ordinarily she loved dancing and feasting, but this was no ordinary night of celebration with friends; she craved nothing more now than the solace of their house and the relative privacy of her bedroom.

Dwarves danced just as they fought and feasted: communally, violently, and with great enthusiasm. There were no particular steps accorded to partners of mixed sex, nor were there dances specific to those of the same sex. Men outnumbered the women so much that any other arrangement would be impractical and dwarves were nothing if not practical. Dáin did not seem to find his artificial limb a hindrance, though after forty years of regular use, Dís would be very much surprised if he did. They made a handsome pairing, both being young and full of energy.

Nar, a near kinsman of Dáin’s on his mother’s side and his most trusted advisor since he came to the throne at the tender age of seventy-five, watched them with great interest. At his left side, Balin watched him, watching them.

“Dáin is still unmarried?” he asked Nar.

“Aye,” the dwarf nodded, not taking his eyes off the couple. His face was liberally crossed with scars and his hair and beard were almost severely braided. He had a warrior’s mien, but his eyes were shrewd beneath his heavy grey brows. “He’s young yet. There’s time.”

“Oh, certainly,” Balin agreed. “If he’s of a mind to wed.”

“I’ve not heard him say a word against it - just the opposite, rather,” Nar said consideringly. For the first time since Balin addressed him, Nar actually looked his way. “The Lady Sígdis’s husband had no kin?”

“Not near kin,” Balin confirmed, keeping his demeanor open and easy, though the cogs in his mind were turning. It was no great puzzle to work out where Nar’s thoughts were heading, whether he would speak plainly about them or not. “A few cousins, none on the father’s side. He was the last of his family here, not many Longbeards left of the ancient line in these lands.”

“Ah, he was part Longbeard then,” Nar said, brows lifting in surprise. He stroked his beard consideringly for a moment, eyes flickering back to the chaos on the floor. “That’ll do, then.”

“You’ll have to forgive me,” Balin said kindly, inclining his head toward Nar. Warily, his eyes flickered to Thorin, several seats away, who was much occupied by Fíli, pulling on his coat and mouthing something frantically toward his ear. When Thorin rose with the lad a moment later and departed the hall, Balin concluded that the boy had need of the privy. Just as well. If he did not like the implication of Nar’s speech, Thorin would have seen red to hear it. “I don’t quite understand. _What_ will do?”

“If the young lady’s amenable, of course,” Nar added hastily. “It’s only that it would mend old wounds, a union between the house Erebor and that of the Iron Hills. I advised Náin as such years ago, Thráin seemed to find the counsel wise, but nothing came of it. I thought, after Moria surely her brother would nudge her toward such a union, but I suppose she was very young still. And he had no way of knowing she’d take up with a near-Broadbeam miner.”

Balin was now _very_ happy Thorin had gone with Fíli for he lacked Balin’s self restraint and would have laid him flat out for his impudence. As it was, Balin himself was experiencing a great difficulty unclenching his own fists. “Hmm,” he hummed, unwilling to prise his thinned lips apart, for he could not trust his tongue to speak calmly. 

“You see the sense of it, of course,” Nar nodded with the easy manner of one unaccustomed to being disagreed with. “It’s rare, I grant you, so rare I’d call remarriage legendary in some circles, but her first husband hardly died with honor. Thorin’s claimed the elder son as heir?”

“Both,” Balin managed.

A small smile quirked the dwarf’s lips, pulling at one of the scars by his mouth. “An heir and a spare,” he chuckled, fixing his eyes upon Kíli who had been passed from Dwalin to Gróin’s wife, Maeva. “Even better. They can remain with their uncle and she can come to the Iron Hills, quite neatly done too.”

“Neat,” Balin repeated. It was a trick his mother taught him when he was young and bit his tongue to keep from arguing outright with officials of foreign courts. _You don’t have to agree with them,_ she told him, smiling like a child sharing secrets. _Just...speak back one of the things they’ve said, they’ll know you’re listening and it won’t matter whether you agree or nay. Some folks just like an audience._

“Neat,” Gróin snorted, a look of disgust on his careworn face. If Halldóra taught her brother-in-law that lesson, he’d only half learned it. “What’s this matchmaking and marriage brokering? Have you all gone the way of Men in the Iron Hills? What about the lassie’s say-so?”

“No one’s denying her rights, Master Healer,” Nar said, spreading his hands expansively. Dáin and Dís were making their way through the crowd back to their seats and he lowered his voice, “But let’s not forget her duty to her people and her line.”

Gróin opened his mouth to argue, but Balin made an abortive gesture to hush him. It was only the first _day_ , they had many weeks more to pass in their company and there was no sense in getting their dander up over a hypothetical marriage that Dís would refuse to take any part in.

Dáin took his seat beside Nar and quaffed half a tankard of ale in one gulp, grinning broadly at Dís who came back to table just as her brother and son returned from their excursion out of doors. No sooner had Thorin set Fíli on the bench beside his mother than he was called away by one of the Broadbeam lords to confer privately.

“Ah!” Dáin sighed in satisfaction. “I’ve not had a dance so wild in an _age_. Thank you, sweet coz, for the honor!”

“Well danced,” she agreed, once she’d polished off her own mug. “But an age, truly? You haven’t some sweetheart back home who’ll dance you off your legs on Durin’s Day?”

“Alas, no,” he shook his head, but shrugged and smiled boyishly at Dís. “I’m waiting for the right girl. As I said earlier, it seems all the prettiest lassies are right here in the Blue Mountains, half a world away! Your friend from earlier on, Thyla?”

“Thyra,” Dís corrected him, starting in on her mead as soon as the mug was refilled.

“Thyra! Loveliest dwarrowdam I ever set eyes on, but married! All the good ones are married!” he lamented, striking Nar jovially on the arm. His advisor only smiled and gave Balin a conspiratorial smile, which went unreturned as Balin suddenly busied himself with his own drink.

“It’s always been thus,” Borr, Nar’s son, observed. He was of an academic mindset and wore a pair of spectacles perched on the edge of his nose, though there were no books or scrolls to be read at the feast. “Since the days of Sognir and his beloved.”

“Who?” Fíli asked. Despite the excitement, it had been a very long day and he and his brother were on the verge of dozing at the table, but Fíli perked up when the promise of a story reached his ears.

Borr seemed shocked that the dwarfling would ask such a thing. “You mean to say you’ve not heard the story of Sognir and the Slaying of the Five Thousand? Who’s your schoolmaster?”

“I am,” Balin said, leaning across the table, fixing Borr with an impassive stare. “I haven’t seen any reason to get round to the telling of that particular piece of lore.”

Gróin, eager to disagree with _someone_ since his nephew curtailed his rebuke over that uppity dwarf sticking his hooked nose into young Dís’s personal affairs, folded his arms and spoke up, “That’s no fit tale for dwarflings so young as that.”

Considering Fíli and Kíli for a moment, Borr nodded. “I suppose not,” he admitted. “Passion of that sort’s beyond the ken of such tender years. Just know it’s a story about what powerful acts love makes a body capable of, lad.”

Dwalin had been keeping his nose well out of the conversations around him by keeping it firmly planted in his tankard, but this was evidently too much to bear. Giving Borr a look of slow, uncomprehending scrutiny, he lowered his cup to the table and snorted, “No it’s not.”

Borr was as little used to brooking argument as his father was. “Beg pardon?” he asked politely, but with a subtle edge in his voice.

“It’s meant to be a caution about the havoc greed can cause, it’s no romance,” Dwalin replied, earning an approving nod from his uncle and an uncomprehending stare from Borr.

The adults around the table knew the story well, it was one of the oldest tales of their mythology and most infamous. In the days when Father Durin walked beneath the earth, there lived a dwarf named Sognir who became enamored of a dwarrowdam of great strength and beauty, with hair like spun gold and eyes that shone like emeralds. But she was betrothed of another. Again and again Sognir lavished her with gifts, full suits of mithril mail, veils spun of gold and silver thread, swords whose blades would never go dull, but she spurned all his advances, only having eyes for her betrothed. The dwarf she loved was not so well off, he had no great feasting room of his own, and in a final gesture of his favor, Sognir offered them use of his own halls for the wedding feast.

Five thousands guests attended the wedding, for the dwarrowdam was much loved by all who knew her. The vows were said, but before the feast began, Sognir had the doors of the halls sealed. Great casks of spirits were upended and, in a fit of jealous rage, the like of which was not known in the world today, he burned the dwarves alive, all for want of her.

“But you can’t deny it was love drove him to do what he did,” Borr said, leaning his elbows on the table, getting as close to Dwalin as the carved stone permitted.

“I can,” Dwalin replied bluntly. “He never loved her. Tell me where in the text does it say so?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t, Dwalin,” Dáin advised sagely. “Borr’s got a whole library’s worth of books and scrolls in his mind and he can quote from ‘em just as written.”

“‘So great was his jealousy,’” Borr recited smugly, “‘that for love of her he did seal them within the Great Hall and lit a great conflation that devoured all within.”

“Not love,” Dwalin persisted, a muscle twitching in his jaw beneath his beard. “The word’s zirikh. _Want._ There’s not a damned mention of _love_ for two hundred verses. Says he was _jealous_ \- ”

“Love makes one jealous,” Borr countered, table digging into his chest as he got even closer. There was heat in his voice now and his face was growing flushed.

Leaning back in his chair, Dwalin shook his head resolutely, folding his arms. “Nah. S’greed does that, nothing more.”

“Clearly you learned the tale from different masters,” Nar said, in an effort to diffuse the unexpectedly volatile situation.

“Clearly,” Balin muttered, knowing full well from whom it was Dwalin first heard the tale. He was not the only dwarf at table who remembered his mother’s lessons. He too heard the Slaying of the Five Thousand told from his mother’s lips and she made no secret of her disdain for Sognir and his treachery.

“Your master,” Borr pressed on, undeterred by those who sought to end the discussion then and there. “He didn’t find Sognir the hero?”

Dwalin gave Borr a scathing look for asking what, to his mind, was a very stupid question. “She didn’t. Found him the villain, more like.”

“You’ll have to be patient with Borr, he does this all the time, just picks a side and argues the point to death” Dáin interjected, trying to catch Dís’s eye, but it was impossible, for her gaze was fixed upon the tabletop as it had been for most of the exchange. Her shoulders were tense beneath the fine weave of her coat and she seemed very determined not to look at anyone or anything.

Still Borr would not let the matter go. “Villain’s a hard judgement,” he complained, but none nodded their agreement. They were all looking warily at Dwalin; half of Borr’s height was easily found in the breadth the warrior’s broad shoulders. If a fight should break out, they knew who they would place their money on when the betting began.

“No harder than he deserves.”

“ _Why?_ ” Borr demanded, striking the tabletop and rousing Fíli who’d been leaning against it with his head upon his arms. Dís moved for the first time since the exchange began, lifting Fíli off the bench and into her own lap where he promptly fell back to sleep against her shoulder.

Slamming both fists down, Dwalin’s grip on his temper loosened and he growled back, “Say you love someone - _truly_ love ‘em and they want to marry another. You don’t trick ‘em into holding the feast in your own halls and then roast them and all their guests alive for sport! If it’s love you feel, let ‘em marry where they choose. You’ll want to see them happy, more than anything else, you don’t want to...to _possess_ them, own ‘em like a cart or a horse! Those're vile thoughts, the very lowest.”

Borr had no response to make, but he stubbornly refused to give in and admit Dwalin the victor. “That so?” he asked rhetorically, tossing back his ale. “And, pray, from what poem did you glean that piece of wisdom.”

“No poem,” Dwalin replied evenly. “Just common sense.”

“I’ll have to look a the text again,” Borr said, then, emboldened by drink, smirked across the table and added more loudly. “Seems the tales of you that reached the Iron Hills were wrong. I’d always heard it was elder son of Fundin the Fearless who was the scholar, like his lady mother. The _younger_ was rumored to be an idiot. Oh, aye, deadly with an axe, but couldn’t even read his own _name_ if was set in front of him!”

There a moment of triumph for Borr, who saw the blue murder in Dwalin’s eyes and _knew_ he’d struck home, but it was fleeting for the larger dwarf hurled him bodily over the table and slammed him upon the floor whereupon he commenced pummeling him mercilessly with his fists.

Dís jumped up to keep Fíli out of the fray and hurried away at a quick clip, not sparing a glance over her shoulder as the table clustered around, half shouting encouragement, the other half trying to pull Dwalin away before he broke Borr’s neck. “Give me my son, I’m taking them back to the house,” she said to Maeva, balancing Fíli on one hip and holding out her free arm for Kíli, asleep on his kinswoman’s shoulder.

Her voice was low and shaky, so frail-sounding beneath the command that Maeva shook her head and held Kíli tighter. “I’ll go back with you,” she said gently, looking around Dís’s shoulder in time to see Thorin storming toward the bout, shouting at everyone to get out of his way.

“If you want,” Dís managed to choke out before the tears which threatened flooded her eyes and began tracking down her cheeks. Heedless of propriety or nobility, she held Fíli close and practically _ran_ out of the hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Writing that chapter was like running a relay race. Lots of players, lots of conversations, lots of unspoken FEELINGS getting passed around. And a first time appearance by Gróin and Mrs. Gróin! I felt bad for killing off everybody's parents, so here are some who survived! (And yeah...I know Dáin was technically thirty-two at Azanulbizar in the books, but I've screwed up everyone's ages in my stories and Dáin is not immune.) Just in case anyone was disappointed about the lack of Thorin in this chapter, don't worry, our favorite brooding king will be back next time, doing what he does best: brooding.


	6. Chapter 6

When Thorin returned home from the feast angry, embarrassed and far more exhausted than he had any right to be, he was relieved to find the house dark and the sitting room cold.

The festivities were still going on by the time he found he could make his excuses and leave without inviting comment. The brawl between Dwalin and Borr was easily forgotten once Gróin gave the younger lad a brief-looking over and set his broken nose. He would be sporting two black eyes come morning, in addition to nursing an arm that had to be popped back into its socket. Dwalin only had to clean Borr’s blood from his hands before he was pronounced fit as a fiddle.

The fight did not dampen the celebratory aura; if anything, it enhanced it. A little bloodshed livened up those occasions that ran the risk of becoming tedious. By the time Dwalin and Balin said their goodbyes, hours earlier than Thorin could escape without seeming unsociable and rude, the rumors were flying.

Borr questioned Dwalin’s ability on the battlefield and was made to give answer for his presumption. Borr took a choice piece of meat the Dwalin had his eye on from the serving trays and had his nose broken for it. Borr merely _looked_ at the terrifying warrior in a way Dwalin did not care for and so was hurled across the table.

Thorin did not know what the truth was and he did not care to know. He only wished to go to bed.

Whenever he had to stand in front of those who should be his peers in his patched and aged finery, he felt like an imposter. A stand-in for the King his people should have had, a poor imitation of his father or grandfather. When he had to take Fíli outside to use the necessary, he was complimented on how devoted an uncle he was, to take such a vested personal interest in the young princes.

Thorin distrusted those who spoke to him in such a way for they had forked tongues - he received many such ‘compliments,’ that night, most from their kin and allies in the Iron Hills. The more his nephews and his role in raising them were made much of, the darker Thorin’s mood became until he was clenching his fists and longing to follow Dwalin’s example.

They knew his sister had no husband and neither of them had servants to tend the house or nursemaids for the children. What sort of brother would he be if he did not give her aid? She, who had given him so much deserved his devotion and more. Those would-be flatterers who thought they were so well informed knew _nothing_ of his life, nor did they care; they sought only to shame him and remind him of his degraded place amongst them.

Thorin had not a word from Dwalin for the rest of the night who was surly and uncommunicative; that suited him just fine for he himself could hardly bear speaking to anyone, not his dearest friend, nor his noble kinsman, though Dáin made a proper fool of himself in his fumbling, jocular attempts to make light of the brawl.

With his smiles and humor and clumsy charm, Dáin seemed very _young_ and it grated on Thorin’s last nerve. Though Dáin was his junior by fewer than thirty years, his youth chafed at Thorin and made him feel like a dour, grey bearded grandfather by comparison. Where Dáin reveled in company, food and music, Thorin longed to return home to the darkness of his room away from the light and noise that he might be left alone with his thoughts, able to let the proud set of his shoulders slump, to lay his unbraided head upon a pillow and pray that sleep would bring oblivion rather than disjointed memories of past loss and pain.

As he stripped off his fine coat and let his belt clatter to the floor, Thorin sensed a flinching movement nearby. The sitting room was not as unoccupied as he suspected. Squinting in the darkness, he discerned his sister’s outline sitting on the floor in front of his usual chair by the fire. Aside from her startle when he haphazardly abandoned his things, she did not move or speak.

It would have been simplicity itself to pretend he had not seen her and continue on to bed. Part of Thorin’s mind rationalized that course of action. If she was sitting in the darkness alone and gave no word of greeting when he returned, clearly she desired solitude and she had a right to it. Yet, as his eyes adjusted to the darkness and he saw her hunched posture, knees drawn up to her chest, head buried in her arms folded on top of them, he read despair in the very line of her.

Thorin was kneeling beside her before he realised he’d dropped to the floor. She never left him alone in his upset and he would not callously abandon her when she was so clearly unhappy.

“Why are you not asleep, namad?” he whispered, laying a gentle hand on the back of her head. Dís had let her hair down and changed into her bedclothes. Her feet were bare against the stone hearth rug.

Dís was quiet for a long time, so long that Thorin almost felt foolish kneeling beside her, but the instant before he decided to take his hand away, she looked up and met his eyes frankly.

“Do you think I’m cruel?”

Dry now, but if the moonlight streaming in through the windows had been a little stronger, Thorin would have seen the redness of tears lingering in her eyes. As it was, he heard the trance of them faintly in her voice and furrowed his brow worriedly.

Dís had not let him see her tears since she was a child at Azanulbizar. Thorin knew she had wept since then - they had known enough of sorrow to flood the world with tears - but he had not borne witness to it. When their mother died, she shut herself away in her room, he heard the sobs, but did not venture in to offer her solace. When her husband died, he was spared even that. Very likely, he thought, because he was a poor comfort and could do her no good in times of trial.

Now, for instance. The question had him reeling even as he knew, from her crumpled posture and shaking voice that she was terribly, terribly upset, and he must do something about it. Yet all he managed was an arm around her. Dís lay her head on his shoulder, but did not uncurl from her defensive position.

“You are not,” he said, for it was the only answer he could give her. “You never could be.”

“Not to _you_ ,” she mumbled quietly, fists clenching and unclenching reflexively.

“Nor anyone else,” he replied, his voice all assurance for what he spoke was the truth. Dís was a diamond, adored universally by all who knew her. She had the steely resolve common in the line of Durin, coupled with good humor and a very large heart. In his private thoughts, Thorin considered his sister the best of their line. If he said as much to her she would only laugh, proving his convictions true even as she herself denied them. “What brought this on?”

“You don’t know?” she asked dully. “You weren’t one of the dozen dwarves who had to pry Dwalin off that _idiot_ from the Iron Hills before he beat him to death?”

“I wasn’t,” Thorin confirmed, feeling his heartbeat pick up and his face grow flushed. “Nar’s son. He insulted you?”

“He insulted _Dwalin_ ,” she corrected him, stiffening slightly under his hands. “If I wasn’t holding Fíli, I’d have knocked him to the floor myself.”

Thorin was at a loss. “But you didn’t. What has it to do with you, then?” he asked, trying to keep the impatience from his voice. He was tired, he was angry and he just wanted to sleep, not recount fisticuffs as the moon rose ever higher in the sky. There were trade talks to attend and defensive strategies to plan, come morning he would have to live this day all over again and he needed rest if he was to be defended from the thousand little slights and insults he would endure until all of their noble allies returned to their mountains and their fortresses.

“It all started because they disagreed about Sognir and the Slaying of the Five Thousand. Which lead to a fairly brilliant treatise from Dwalin on the nature of s-selfless love.”

Dís did not cry, but from the trembling of her shoulders and the way her eyes cast themselves up at the ceiling, Thorin could tell it was a near thing. “Ah,” he said, rising up on his knees to embrace her fully, kissing the top of her hair as gently as a father might. “I see.”

Oftentimes, Thorin thought of his life and those of his kinfolk as a series of tragedies, peppered throughout with moments of happiness always brief and fleeting. He accepted the truth of this in his nineties when the remains of his family were once again shattered and scattered to the winds as the smoke from the pyres burned away his grandfather and brother’s bodies. It was not a happy way to live, but Thorin felt then and now that he was not one destined for happiness.

Dís, hopeful dwarfling she had been, balked at the sorrowful existence that seemed to be their lot. She wanted to be happy. If it was in Thorin’s power to realign their stars, he would have done so for she _deserved_ to be happy. As it was, he gave his blessing for her marriage young dwarf with a smile bright as the sun and a laugh that could make anyone forget their troubles. But troubles followed them like a shadow and once again their brief joy was consumed by pointless tragedy.

All the while, Dwalin did not interfere. He did not remove himself from their lives, none of them could bear it, but he stood by steadfast and loyal as Thorin’s heart broke for both of them.

“I’ll put it to you again,” Dís whispered softly into her brother’s shirt. “Am I cruel?”

Thorin kissed her once more, “I’ll answer you again: You are not. You never could be.”

When she spoke again, her voice was so quiet that Thorin had to strain his ears to hear.

“I love him.”

Closing his eyes, Thorin nodded and held her close, tucking her head under his chin, as he used to do when they were young and he could offer her some measure of protection from the world and its cruelties. Then, Dís only needed a warm embrace and a song. Not for the first time, he wished she never had to grow up. “I know.”

“I didn’t marry him.”

“Not because you didn’t love him,” Thorin said, prompting his sister to raise her head and look at him, regret writ deep in the lines of her face. “Because you were afraid.”

Dís laughed shakily at that, a hollow broken sound. “I still am,” she admitted. They sat huddled on the floor for a short time more, neither speaking, the quiet of the night interrupted only by the sound of their breathing. Dís rose eventually and left, giving Thorin a kiss on the cheek and wishing him sweet dreams.

Thorin nodded and retreated to his own room, pausing on the threshold to glance back at her. He did not respond to her statement earlier, but as she closed the door gently behind her so as not to wake her sons, he found himself wishing he’d given voice to what he felt in his heart.

As he drifted off into restless slumber, he heard her again, confiding her fear and answered her silently, with his mind’s voice.

_So am I, dear one. So am I._

* * *

After Dwalin shed his coat and outer garments, he walked three times around the perimeter of the village, smoked two pipes and _still_ was not calm enough for sleep. The night watch paid him no mind as he stalked the darkened streets like some beast from one of the southern jungles searching for prey. He rather wished that some unseemly sort would happen along just so he could find an excuse to fight the tension out of his system.

Young Nori might have made a worthy opponent. Too bad he was never around when one could make use of him.

It was only with great reluctance that he made his way back to his lodgings at all. If he did not return before dawn, Balin would come looking for him and he was entirely too old for his elder brother to drag home by his ear after a late night out.

The lamps were still burning at Bildr’s alehouse he noted as he stomped past, pausing only briefly before continuing on his way. If he thought Thorin had made his way home already, he might have waylaid him and insisted that they get raving drunk to cap the night off, but he was likely still seething silently at the lords of the Seven Kingdoms. Thorin was ever dutiful, but he never had a talent for feigning contentment. Probably because he had so little to be content about.

The door of the rooms he shared with his brother was unlocked and Dwalin knew before he entered that Balin would be waiting inside for him, wide awake and desirous of a _talk_. Balin had a way with words, he could charm the scales off a snake when he put his mind to it. Dwalin should have learned by now to hold his tongue in company; he let his big mouth run tonight and where had that gotten him?

“Tea,” his brother said pleasantly, pushing a mug into his hands without asking for Dwalin’s permission. “I would offer to join you for a smoke, but you pilfered the last of my pipeweed.”

“I’ll buy you some more,” Dwalin said, pointedly not thanking his brother for the tea since he did not want it. Still, he was not a dwarf to turn down food or drink, so he downed half of it in one swallow. “If it’s all the same t’you, could - is there whiskey in this?”

“Aye,” Balin nodded, looking up at him with a queer, perturbed expression on his face. “For the pain.”

If any other dwarf said such a thing to him, they would have meant it as a joke, but Balin’s eyes were deadly serious and so sorrowful that Dwalin tore his away and looked at the floor, embarrassed. Few had that kind of power over him, the power to make him feel _small_ , of all things, but Balin was one of them.

“I’m fine,” Dwalin said, sitting heavily in a chair by the small fire his brother built up in his absence. As long as he wasn’t looking at Balin, he could almost convince himself of the truth of the statement. “I ought to leave the talk of poems to experts, we both know I’m no scholar.”

Balin nudged a slender volume at him, laying it spine-down upon a table at his elbow. “You were right,” he said as Dwalin took the book up and squinted at the text. “Zirikh, not âzyun. Want, not love. Love isn’t mentioned once in all two-hundred lines, as you said.”

For a moment, as Balin spoke, the text made sense.

Zirikh. Or did it say Ksirig? No, it was zirikh, he knew the tale by heart, but the longer he looked the more he doubted his own mind. Better not to try. Dwalin lay the book down, rubbing his eyes irritatedly.

“Nonsense,” he muttered darkly. If he spoke about the text or his own mind, it was impossible to say. “And what does it matter? I sounded a fool even if I remembered the text well enough.”

Balin was watching him impassively, hands wrapped around his own mug of tea. Dwalin wondered idly if his brother treated himself to a shot of the hard stuff, but supposed he had not. What pain could he seek to soothe? Balin was wise, all-knowing and did not shed blood over a few lines of literature and one short-bearded youngling’s wrong headed ideas about romance.

“I thought your words were well-taken by most,” Balin replied evenly.

“Most,” Dwalin repeated, barely managing to stop his eyes rolling in his head. So Gróin agreed with him. Well, he would, he was their uncle. And Balin, probably. What did he care for the rest of them? Dís fled away as though he’d shed his skin and turned into a fire drake before her eyes. If he was living his life as a romance, then he ought to cut out the tongue that afrighted her, but he was too practical for such gestures. Come to think of it, so was she.

What had he been _thinking_ running his mouth like that? Did some selfish part of his heart think she would find favor with his words and his hopeless devotion? Such low wit was beneath even him and certainly beneath his darling girl.

Most days the pain of it was nothing. He was peppered over with old scars and like those souvenirs of battle, the wounds he sustained in his heart rarely troubled him. It was enough to know her, to talk with her and laugh with her, know she was well and do his little part to ease her way. Dwalin loved her with all his heart, but with a depth that went past simple wanting. To be friend and kinsman was enough. Most days.

Sometimes, though, like any old injury the pain would flare up unexpectedly. A peddler selling his wares would see them walking together in the marketplace and whistle for their attention. “Something for the missus?” They’d grin and her arm would slide from his as they continued their errands, close, but not touching. Or else a well-intentioned idiot would mistake Fíli (or more often Kíli) as one of his own sons. The lads would get all puffed up and smile, but the light in her eyes would go out, though she hadn’t the heart to chastise her sons for being so proud that a stranger thought their Mister Dwalin was their father.

Those were the times when he could use a little something to ease the ache. A little something, as Balin said, for the pain.

One thing was for sure. No enemy on the battlefield managed to wound him as deeply or as tenderly as Dís. There was no one he would more gladly bleed for.

“She ran off,” Dwalin said to the flickering flames of the fire. “Fled.”

“She took her sons to bed,” his brother replied diplomatically.

Dwalin rubbed his eyes again; the fire seemed smokier than usual that night, curse Balin if he forgot the open the flue the whole way, the whole place would reek of it. “Poor lass,” he sighed. “I sounded a fool, no wonder she couldn’t bear it.”

“No one thinks you’re a fool.” One of Balin’s warm hands fell on his shoulder and squeezed lightly. “Dís least of all. She was...distressed, but so you both were. Little wonder too, those Iron Hills dwarves put my teeth on edge.”

Dwalin laughed hollowly, “Well, they’ve always been a queer lot. Hung up on custom, Da always said, put too much stock in ceremony. Comes of living too close by Men.”

“Too close by Men indeed,” Balin said and something in his bitter tone made Dwalin look up.

“You know something I don’t?” he asked, eyebrows rising slightly.

“I always do,” Balin smiled in a teasing way. “Comes of having nearly half a century of years over yours.” He took his brother’s now empty cup from his hands and set it aside. Balin glanced at him then, a flicker of uncertainty on his face as though he was about to say something and thought better of it.

Dwalin spoke to him instead, “Do you think I’m a fool?” As he asked the question, he realized he did not want to look upon his brother as he replied. Rising abruptly, he meant to busy himself making ready for bed, but hardly an instant passed before Balin reply.

“No,” he lay a gentle hand on his brother’s arm and Dwalin saw nothing but honesty and compassion in his brother’s blue eyes. “I never have.”

“I hurt her,” Dwalin said bluntly, almost ashamed. She’d hurt him, of course, but he knew he could survive the wound and live with the pain. When he was the one wounding and it was she who ached for it, he felt he must be the worst of souls to walk beneath the earth.

Balin sighed. “We’re forever hurting and being hurt,” he stated simply. “So much that it hardly matters. What does matter is forgiving one another and going on. You’ll both survive the night.” With another reassuring pat, Balin let his hand drop and crossed to the mantle to put out the fire.

Dwalin stood in the descending darkness. Despite the sudden, unexpected onset of exhaustion, he wanted to run to the rooms Thorin and Dís shared. _Do you forgive me?_ he wanted to ask. _I’ll always forgive you._ In his mind’s eye she looked up at him and smiled one of those beautiful smiles of hers and...

And nothing. The image was gone as quickly as it came and replaced with a picture closer to the truth. She would blink up at him in confusion with sleep-addled eyes, the boys would wake and clamber out of bed to watch the spectacle as Thorin hauled him bodily from the house for interrupting their rest.

Shaking his head to clear the cobwebs and the fantasy, Dwalin got into bed and willed himself to have a dreamless sleep. Like Sognir, he was no hero. And his life was no romance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sigh* THESE DWARVES. They are too noble and too stubborn for their own goods. We'll be taking the focus off of them in the next chapter and redirecting it where it belongs: On the cute little dwarflings without all this emotional baggage.


	7. Chapter 7

As luck would have it, Bofur was not forced to make good on his promise to his young niece and nephew. Just as the sun began to burn hot overhead, Fíli and Kíli scampered merrily over to the grassy patch behind the shops dressed in their usual patched and worn tunics and trousers, slightly breathless from running.

“Hallo!” Fíli took off his cap and waved it furiously over his head at the dwarflings who had already assembled. It was too hot to wear hats, he decided and so tucked it in the back of his belt, the breeze making his hair tangle and blow wildly about head. Neither Mam nor Uncle Thorin had time to brush and braid it that day for they overslept and were running late for their meeting with the royal dwarves of the Seven Kingdoms. Mam had to eat her porridge standing up while Mister Balin stood in the doorway and pretended not to notice.

The assemblage of dwarflings was smaller than usual, but it was still rather early in the day. Only Bifur and Catla were waiting in the usual place, left their by their mother who was always up before the sun to light the fires in the bakery and set the bread to rising. Uncharacteristically, neither the brother nor the sister seemed very happy to see them.

“Awww,” Bilfur groaned, slapping himself dramatically on the forehead when he caught sight of Fíli and his brother climbing to the crest of the hill. “Now he won’t do it!”

“Who won’t do what?” Kíli asked, stuffing his own cap in his pocket when he noticed that Fíli was not replacing his. That plan lasted all of three seconds before Fíli fished it out for him and jammed it back over his younger brother’s head.

“Little dwarflings got to wear their caps,” he said in a superior sort of voice that made Kíli scowl and puff his cheeks out in irritation.

“ _You’re_ little,” he complained, teetering unsteadily on his toes as he tried to stand of a height with his brother.

“Bigger’n you.” Fíli too rose up and smugly stood a full inch and three quarters taller than his younger brother. Settling back down on his heels, he cocked his head and repeated his brother’s query, “Who won’t what?”

“Uncle Bofur said he reckoned as we’d be seeing you afore noontime,” Catla explained since her brother was trying to see how he measured up against Fíli where height was concerned. “He said if you didn’t come, he’d eat his hat.”

“Oh, I would’ve wanted t’see that!” Kíli stomped his foot and was more put-out about missing the spectacle of Mister Bofur making a meal of his favorite hat. “What if we go ‘way and come back later?”

What they would _do_ in the meantime was a mystery. The smithy was locked up tight until his mother and uncle could stop wearing their fine clothes and get back to their usual work with Mister Dwalin. Then schooling would resume. There were to be no lessons until the meeting between the kingdoms was concluded and the little dwarflings cheered with joy at the pronouncement - then stopped and apologized to Mister Balin for their rudeness when their mother thwapped them on the head.

Catla shook her head. “Nah, you’re here now, we seen you and spoke to you and all. Might as well stay.”

“Why wouldn’t we come ‘fore noontime?” Fíli asked, confused. “We come near every day!”

“‘Cos o’that fine cousin of yours being in town,” Bilfur replied, standing shoulder to shoulder with Fíli, squinting at his head. “Stand back on back with me, eh? There’s something I got to figure on.”

“Alright,” Fíli nodded and turned around so that his back was flush against Bilfur’s.

“Cat, which of us is the taller?” Bilfur asked his sister.

She shrugged winding one of her wheat-blonde braids around her finger. “Dunno. You’re ‘bout the same. Fíli, what’s the difference ‘tween a king and a lord? Me Ma didn’t know.”

Fíli screwed his face up as he thought, scratching his head and mussing his hair. “As I seen it,” he said at last, “Kings work in the forge and got short beards and Lords live far away and got long beards and armor made all of gold.”

Bilfur’s mouth dropped open so widely that a passing fly might have flown right down his throat without the dwarfling being any the wiser. “ _All_ o’gold?” he asked incredulously.

“Prob’ly with other metal mixed in,” Fíli amended. He was years away from beginning his apprenticeship, but even he knew that gold was too soft to make a proper shield. “But gilt all around!”

“Ori!” Catla spied the youngest of their group in his finely sewn leather cap making his way slowly toward them.

Bilfur closed his mouth and spun on the spot, a triumphant smirk upon his lips when he saw Ori. “ _See?_ ” he asked, gesturing wildly to Fíli and Kíli. “ _See?_ I told you we’d see ‘em ‘fore long. Got me all nervy on no account!”

“Sorry,” Ori apologized, scuffling the toes of his worn boots in the dirt, kicking up a little cloud of dust as he did so. “Only Dori said - ”

“And me Uncle Bofur said it weren’t true and it weren’t,” Bilfur interrupted him with a grin. “Just ‘cos your brother’s older’n dirt don’t mean he knows everything ‘bout everything.”

“He’s not _so_ old,” Ori protested in his quiet way.

“He’s got silver in his beard.”

“Aye, he does,” the little dwarfling admitted. “But only ‘cos Nori gives him grief, not ‘cos he’s old.” Smiling at Fíli and Kíli he added, “I _am_ glad you’ve come. I told Dori I hoped you’d not stay away long, but he said that you might ‘cos of your duty.”

Fíli and Kíli giggled at that. Duty. What a funny word it was. Duty. Not one they ever heard applied to little dwarflings like themselves, it was better used on grown dwarves like their mother or Mister Balin or Uncle Thorin or Mister Dwalin. Adults who had long been masters of their crafts, seen battle and could plait their own hair or get married or do other things that grown-ups did to keep themselves occupied. Children did not have _duties_ , they only had to be home for the noon meal and supper, mind their elders, and try not to get too dirty when they were down to their last clean tunics before wash day.

“Tell us more ‘bout the Kinglord,” Catla demanded, tugging hard on Fíli’s sleeve. “Was he handsome?”

“He was!” Fíli nodded enthusiastically. “Had a handsome beard anyway, just about as long as Mister Glóin’s, but black like Mam and Uncle Thorin.”

“Did your Ma look beautiful like a princess when she seen him?”

“Aye, she looked alright,” Fíli confirmed. “Missus Hervor done her hair up special for her. ‘Course, I like her best in the clothes what she wears everyday. She can’t wrestle good in her fine coat.”

“I want to hear ‘bout them arms you was talking on,” Bifur interjected, tired of his sister’s fascination with handsome kings and fair ladies. “Gold, they was? And silver too?”

“Mithril, probably,” Kíli declared and all of the dwarflings, even those whose parents did not work in a forge or a mine caught their breath and sighed ‘ _Oh_ ,’ at the mention of that precious metal, lost to their people since the time Durin’s Bane drove forth the Longbeards of Moria from their home. “I never seen such arms afore in all me life! Even their _horses_ had armor!”

Bilfur folded his arms and scoffed, “You’re foolin’!”

“Am not!” Kíli retorted, rising up on his toes and tilting his chin up. “You wasn’t there and I was and I says them horses had armor!”

Bilfur looked at Fíli skeptically but the yellow haired dwarfling confirmed his brother’s tale, “Aye, they did! Helms and mail. Their hooves was gilded and all!”

That latter detail may not have been entirely accurate, but in Fíli’s mind’s eye they absolutely were. A dozen - nay, _two_ dozen mounts all clad in shining armor, ridden by warriors whose arms were brand new and gleaming, not dented and worn like the armor their Uncle Thorin kept locked away in his chest. Their bears were long and grandly braided, unlike their mother and uncle’s beards, torn in grief and kept short in mourning.

“We got to stay up for ages last even,” Fíli boasted. “‘Til long after the moon rose at the biggest, best feast you ever did see. I didn’t think there were as many creatures in the forest as there was slaughtered and just for one supper!”

“Did they dance? And sing? Were there fights?” Bilfur asked, eyes double their usual size, unable to fathom the bounty his friend described. He thought his parents put out quite a spread for his youngest brother’s Name Day, but the feast Fíli spoke of put their effort to shame.

“Aye,” Fíli nodded confidently at first, but his head cocked to the side and his tone became more uncertain. “Reckon so.”

“Did your Ama send you off to bed ‘fore it got started?” Ori asked. It was something that Dori would insist on, if his own mother did not say so first.

“He fell asleep,” Kíli announced, smirking at his elder brother who looked as though he had just betrayed a great secret. “I did too,” he added quickly and Fíli looked a little less sullen. “It was late! And we’d been up ‘fore dawn getting shouted at to stay out of the way and then told to come back in ‘cos we was needed.”

“I did see a fight, though!” Fíli reassured Bilfur. “Mister Dwalin laid some Iron Hills dwarf flat on his backside!”

“What’d they fight over?” Ori asked.

Fíli shrugged, “Dunno. Like as not the other dwarf got big for his britches and made him challenge. Stupid! No one can beat Mister Dwalin, he’s big and strong as a mountain.”

“Someone as don’t know us thought he was my Da!” Kíli puffed himself up with pride. Being out of his mother’s earshot, he could freely display his pleasure in being mistaken for Mister Dwalin’s son. When it happened, both Mam and Mister Dwalin got quiet and ornery-seeming, for reasons Kíli could not fathom other than maybe it made Mam think of his real Da who was dead and it made her sad. If he could not have his real father, Kíli thought Mister Dwalin made a fine substitute, but he never said so to his mother, just in case it made her sorrowful. Kíli wouldn’t want to cause his mother heartache, not for all the mithril in Khazad-dûm.

Catla giggled at him. “Must’ve been half blind to think Mister Dwalin was _your_ Da,” she teased him. “You don’t come up no higher than his knee, surely!”

“You’re a fine one to talk,” Kíli huffed. “You’re littler than me!”

“I’m _younger_ than you,” she pointed out with a roll of her eyes. “‘Course I’m littler!” Spinning around on the spot, she closed her eyes and tried to imagine the great big hall, tables groaning with food and hundreds of dwarves in fine clothes dancing the night away between brawls. It sounded heavenly. “Wish I’d seen all what you seen. Sounds a treat!”

That gave Fíli an idea. “You should come see!” he exclaimed. “The horses, at least, they’re not stabled too far away and the day being so fine, like as not they’re out and about.”

Ori lifted his head in alarm. “We can’t go over there!” he protested, face going pale beneath his freckles. “We’re not allowed.”

“That’s silly, Ori, we was there just yesterday,” Kíli pointed out. Granted, he and Fíli were the only dwarflings in attendance once Gimli was taken home to bed, but that was likely only because the other dwarves did not want to bring their children miles and miles to the Ered Luin. Ori, Bilfur and Catla lived right nearby, they would have to undertake no great journey to the paddock. Why should they not be allowed. “‘Sides, they belong to our cousin. No reason we shouldn’t have a look - ‘less you’re _scared_.”

“I’m not scared,” Catla declared, drawing herself to her full two-foot height and holding her head high. “I ain't scared o’nothing. I’m up for it!”

“Me too!” Bilfur said, not to be outdone by his younger sister.

Ori still looked doubtful. Though he was the youngest of their group of friends, he was also smarter than the lot of them put together - they all thought so anyway. More cautious, less likely to leap into new and exciting adventures feet-first. But that was the thing about adventures: if you didn’t take a chance, nothing would ever happen to you and you’d do nothing but pass your days being bored behind the shops until you were old enough to apprentice and didn’t _that_ sound boring?

In the interest of keeping his little friend from becoming boring, Fíli put an arm around Ori’s shoulder and assured him, “If they says anything, we’ll just tell ‘em you’re with us - and who’ll notice a pack o’dwarflings anyway, eh?”

The ‘who’ were a pair of very young, very green members of Dáin Ironfoot’s Guard. If the dwarflings had come but an hour earlier, they could have gone about their business in peace. Older, experienced guardsmen would have had no quarrel with a few village ragamuffins climbing the paddock fence to pat the ponies on the nose and feed them an apple or two from their pockets. Those few dwarves who were missing their own children might have spoken kindly to them, lifting them up so they could pat the ponies’ manes and answered the little ones patiently when they inquired of the horses’ names.

But the elder Guardsmen were indoors partaking of the noontime meal and in their stead, looking after the mounts, were two dwarves who made the journey West for the first time in their lives. They had more spots on their faces than hair on their chins and when they saw a gaggle of little Broadbeams scrambling over one another to fatten up the royal mounts on apples and sugared sweetbreads, they responded exactly as they had been trained to do when facing down suspicious trespassers. Granted, their instructors never specifically mentioned what to do when those trespassers were half their height and under thirty years of age, but they assumed the rules were the same.

“Hey, you!” shouted Onar, a short stocky dwarrow lad whose ancestors had come to the Iron Hills from the Red Mountains centuries before. His dark complexion, like coffee stirred with a drop of milk, went darker still as the blood rushed to his face when he realized he’d forgotten his protocol. Fortunately, Jari, his companion, remembered for both of them.

“HALT!” he bellowed for the dwarflings had not even turned their heads when Onar squawked at them. His face was ruddy as his auburn hair that had come loose from his braids in the morning humidity and curled around his face in frizzy red ringlets. “In the name of Lord Dáin of the Iron Hills drop your...apples and yield!”

Really, he was meant to say ‘Drop your arms,’ but the children had no arms, only bits of food so he amended the words to suit the situation. He hoped his Master would find his conduct an indication of quick-thinking and not a gross breach of duty.

As the two young guards ran toward the paddock, armor clicking noisily as they ran, the children set to moving more than they had been before Jari snapped at them to halt. Far from remembering to call upon the name of their royal kinsman as justification for their visit, Fíli grabbed Kíli and Ori each by an arm and leapt off the fence, tugging both of them down with him. Catla too grabbed her brother around the waist and the two of them landed in a heap on the ground before they scrambled to their feet and ran.

Onar and Jari had quite a job collecting them; none of the children were courteous enough to run in the same direction and just when they reached out to snag them, they would come away with only a cap in their hands or else the little one would wrench away from them, tearing their tunics in the process and tripping over their boots in their haste. The smallest of the dwarflings was the first caught when he took a tumble after stumbling over a rock. Onar swept him up off his feet with one arm and the little fellow did not even struggle.

On the contrary, his green-brown eyes went shiny with tears as his round face screwed up and his lower lip trembled. He reminded Onar so fiercely of his own younger brother that he nearly dropped the child and let him be - until he remembered his duty. They had a job to do and how would it look if he and Jari let them trouble the horses without a word of protest? They would look soft. They would look unworthy of their posts and return to the Iron Hills in disgrace. So he ignore the little one’s tears and set about snagging another dwarfling with unbraided black hair who doubled back when he noticed the youngest fall.

 _This_ one was not so sedate. He howled like a warg that smelled blood, twisting and turning and kicking as Onar held him aloft by the back of his tunic. A sharp thump on his leg made him look down; a third dwarfling with bright gold hair, matted and mussed kicked him hard on the shin and jumped up, trying to tear at his arms.

“Let ‘em _go_!” he shrieked, giving Onar’s boot another hard kick for good measure. “Let ‘em go! We wasn’t doing nothing!”

“You were molesting the royal mounts of the Iron Hills,” Jari said, slightly out of breath with the other two, one under each arm. There was another yellow-haired one, with soft cheeks and a look that might have been sweet if she wasn’t pounding at every bit of Jari she could reach with her tightly balled fists and rearing her head back in an attempt to bite him. A taller red-haired lad was kicking up such a storm, Onar saw Jari come close to dropping him as he marched over. Neither had a free hand for the fifth child, but he did not seem about to leave without his companions.

“We just wanted to see ‘em!” the dark-haired boy Onar held whinged. “We didn’t do ‘em no harm! We was just looking!”

“Well, you saw them,” Onar replied peevishly - the high pitch of the child’s voice was going right through his head, it was worse than goblins’ screams. Or what he imagined the screaming of goblins must sound like, if he was ever to hear the screaming of goblins. “Best be off with you before we clap you in irons!” There. That was a good strong warning that would probably keep the wee blighters from wandering into places they had no business coming near.

“If you did,” the kicker, still on the ground spat angrily, “you’d be sorry! My Uncle’d have your...your...heads cut off, he would!”

Onar and Jari exchanged a look, then laughed. “Oh?” Jari asked with false sincerity. “Who’s your uncle, then, that I should be so afeared?”

“Thorin, son of Thráin, King Under the Mountain.” He replied so promptly and so sincerely that it would have been easy to believe he spoke the truth - if the listener could not see the boy. He had none of the coloring of that branch of the line of Durin, even if his eyes were blue as the autumn sky. His hair was thick and blonde, his speech unlike that of any princeling Onar knew and his clothes so worn that it was a wonder his scrawny little elbows weren’t poking through his tunic.

“That so?” Onar replied after he and Jari shared another laugh at the children’s expense. “And I suppose your Amad’s the Lady Sigdís?”

“She is!” the one Onar held aloft insisted. “Stop laughing! She’s our Mam and he’s our Uncle and you got to put us down ‘fore she takes your heads herself!”

“Bite your tongue, little liar,” Jari said, tightening his grip on the two dwarflings he held. “I know the truth of it. The Lady has two sons, princes both, not a litter of Broadbeam nobodies who don’t respect their betters.”

“We isn’t nobodies and we ain’t Broadbeams neither,” the blonde one huffed.

“You look like Broadbeams, sound like Broadbeams and _smell_ like Broadbeams,” Onar retorted down at him. “It’s a crime in itself to make false claims about having royal blood, you know - our Lord Dáin could have _your_ heads for such.”

That was meant to be the end of it. So grand a threat, Onar thought, would make even the boldest of these mites lose their bluster and agree to heed them and head home. To be perfectly honest, the silent tears streaming down the face of the youngest were a little too much to bear with equanimity. But the blonde one continued his protest. Without a set of free arms to hold him fast, he was able to reach into his boot and remove a dagger which he brandished before Onar’s face.

“He wouldn’t! He’s our cousin! He gave these over as a present to us, me and Kíli both! See?”

Onar saw alright, he saw the daggers gifted to the little princes. Lord Dáin removed them once from their wrappings when they made camp and showed them to he and Jari both, asking if they thought his cousins would like them. Both the young guardsmen agreed that they were fine gifts for young dwarrows, and so the same blade met his eyes today.

Onar and Jari both suffered a moment of doubt; they were dismounting when Lord Dáin greeted the Lady’s sons. They might have been the age of these dwarflings, but neither got a good look at their faces...but it could not be. These lads were dressed little better than paupers, in old clothes with dusty, worn boots and dirty faces. Surely, even in exile, the princes of Erebor were better attired and looked after than that.

There could be only one explanation.

Onar managed to get the kicker and the crier tucked up under one of his arms with only minimal difficulty. With the other he plucked the dagger from the other boy’s hand and tucked it in his belt, ignoring the dwarfling’s cry of dismay and bearing his ineffective blows upon his back when he hauled the child over his shoulder, turning to Jari with a grim look on his face.

“Should we take them before his Lordship?” he asked.

“Aye, I should say so,” Jari nodded after taking an instant to consider the matter. “If these little brats have stolen from the royal princes, his Lordship will want to know of it. No telling what they might have done to get them from them - and if the princes are hurt - ”

“We’re not hurt!” the child on Onar’s shoulder shouted loudly, right in his ear. “We’re them!”

“Hush your mouth now! No more lies!” Jari ordered, beginning the long hike to the chambers without the mountain where Lord Dáin sat in counsel with the dwarves of Erebor. The dwarflings in his arms struggled still and Onar found it quite a trial to follow along carrying three of the squirming, arguing little creatures. Despite the hardship, the journey had to be made. It was their duty.

King Thorin and Lady Sigdís would be most displeased when they learned what became of their heirs. Of that both guardsmen were quite certain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And THIS is why you don't leave the greenhorns alone to cover lunches. A lesson Thorin would have done well to learn fifty years later, but he'll have other things on his mind in the next chapter...


	8. Chapter 8

It was undignified and inappropriate to consider, when the conversation around him was so very serious, but Thorin could not get his mind off his pipe. It had been missing since they ran around the house ostensibly tidying, but the act looked a good deal more like ‘hiding’ the longer it went on. He hadn’t had a good long smoke in two days or a cup of strongly brewed coffee in longer than that. Indulgences both, but indulgences that were beginning to seem somewhat necessary for his well of patience - never very full on his best days - was near to running dry and it was only noontime.

For the past quarter of an hour he had contributed nothing of value, preferring to sit with his lips pressed together and his brows drawn down moodily. There was little for him to say that would not confirm how very low the dwarves of Erebor had sunk in the world. He had no stores of gold to loan to other kingdoms, nor standing army to send to bulk up their own forces. In all the world, what did he have? A rented flat and a single smithy. If these noble lords wanted their shields polished, their arms sharpened or their ponies shod, then he would speak and offer his services.

Any extra income generated at the smithy he made a point to disperse among those of his subjects who had fallen on hard times. There were provisions for such in the laws that governed the Blue Mountains, but Thorin felt it necessary that he take care of his own. If he could mend a spearhead for free or provide a widow with a few coins to feed her family, he would do so. But that meant the forge had to blaze most days and to leave it idle and let orders go unfilled or delayed might give him trouble feeding his own family and on this, the second day he’d risen with the sun, but not made his usual progress to the forge, he found himself concerned about when they would be able to get back to work.

Dwalin, as one of his highest ranking retainers - and what an inadequate word to describe the position his almost-brother held in his life - could not be spared and could hardly request that Dís run the shop in their absence. Not because she lacked competence, but because he wanted - nay, _needed_ her here. When he clenched his jaw to avoid paying insult to other clan heads, Dís was there to fill the silence with her own observations and recommendations. Balin spoke wisely and counsel was always heeded, but Thorin liked the security of his sister’s leg pressing against his to warn him when he was looking too dour or her hand lightly brushing his arm if his tone became a touch too acidic. Her words were taken as seriously as his, for though Dis lacked some of Thorin’s formal education, she was shrewd and observant, despite her youth, and had clearly impressed some of the elder lords and statesmen.

Nar in particular eyed her with approval, nodding slowly nearly every time she opened her mouth to speak. It was a boon for it gave Thorin time to reign his temper and collect himself. Dís was more easygoing than him and though he could command, he found it trying to collaborate. Not for the first time, he thanked the Maker that he had been gifted with such a sister.

A sister who happened to be just as annoyed as the brother, but Dís considered herself better at hiding it. She especially did not like the way that Nar fellow, the father of that awful brat Dwalin taught a lesson to the night previous, kept looking at her. He seemed determined to find fault with her and privately she thought he needn’t look so hard at her if he was seeking out her flaws. She was attired in the same coat she’d worn all day yesterday, including her paltry jewels that got Dáin’s men sniggering.

Some of his men, anyway. There were a few among their number that she found tolerable, Dáin himself had been making an effort at civility far exceeding any of those courtiers he brought with him, she wondered that they did not follow their king’s example. And there was the head of his Guard whose presence she found pleasing if only because he didn’t say very much.

Lothar was his name, not particularly tall, but very stout with a coal-dark complexion and a fine, thick beard. Among his enemies he was known as the Death’s Head Dwarf, both because in battle his face was the last his enemies saw before they breathed their last and also (less fancifully) due to scarred over crater in the place where once his nose had been. It was far from the only scar he boasted, but it was the most impressive.

The two of them shared bland pleasantries over dinner the night before, he commented favorably upon her boys and informed her that his eldest son made the journey West with him, his first away from home. She made some idle remark about being sure the son would do his father credit and that was the end of it. Not a joke about how Fíli hadn’t the look of an heir of the line of Durin, nor a chuckle about how Kíli’s speech was pure Broadbeam. In fact, as she recalled, he did not joke and rarely cracked a smile all evening. Perhaps that was why she instantly liked him.

Dís, in choosing friends, favored those with a quick smile and ready laugh, but she did not quite trust the pleasantries of these royal dwarves. There ever seemed to be a little something that flickered in their eyes beneath their mirth, eel-like, too quick to focus on, that belied their overtures of friendship. They bowed before her brother, but the gestures seemed lacking. Thorin might take it to heart and feel that their respect seemed hollow because his reign was hollow, but Dís felt sure, right down in her gut, that even if Thorin greeted them on the throne of Erebor and not a hot street corner in the Blue Mountains, they would still lack due deference.

Or perhaps not. Dís remembered embarrassingly little of courtly life, being only slightly older than Fíli when the dragon came. Too young to apprentice, she’d only just begun her formal schooling. Her experience of court consisted almost entirely of being shushed by her mother, perching upon her grandfather’s knee between guests or sitting on her grandmother’s shoulders, cheek falling upon her silver hair when she got tired.

There were others too, dwarves and dwarrowdams who’d come in and out of her days, some better remembered than others, but she was a chubby-cheeked giggling child among them. She knew more about how to trap and skin a rabbit than she did how to comport herself among elite, but she would try. For duty’s sake, and for Thorin’s.

Still, what she wouldn’t give for the comforting weight of a hammer in her hands. That was something she’d been trained in, she was a smith before she was a princess, the heat of the forge was a comfort, while the starched, high-necked collar of her coat felt chafing and confining.

Then again, she reflected, eyes flickering from the lords assembled around the long tables to the guards who lined the walls, if she had gone to the forge that day, she would have experienced discomfort of a different kind. Dwalin steadfastly avoided her eyes all morning and had not spoken at all except to bid her good day. She could only assume he was angry with her and she could not find it in her heart to blame him.

The Blacklock lord who first roused Dwalin’s temper was seated half a dozen places away from her, thank the Maker for small favors. They had not had the opportunity to exchange words and she dreaded having to speak to him again and hear his apology for his error. It twisted her innards in knots to think of it, for Dwalin looked so...perfect with Kíli. With either of the boys, really, he was as good to them as Thorin, but her youngest, with his dark hair and brown eyes, was the easier for strangers to mistake for being his son.

If Víli had been a brute, it would not tear her up so. If she had not loved her husband, if he had not been worthy of all the love in the world - but she would not have married him had he not been. As much as Dwalin loved them, as good as he was to them, he was not their father. Their father was dead and there was no one who had ever lived or would ever live, who could take his place.

There were many widows among their race, for where the menfolk could, they went to war. It was not unheard of for an older dwarrowdam, past bearing years, to take a companion. Theirs was a race who enjoyed company and community, why should a woman whose husband had made the ultimate sacrifice for their people live her life alone?

 But she was young. Many of her own age were newly wed or expecting their first child. For her to take up with Dwalin, be his wife, live with him and let him father her living children would be nothing short of a scandal. And those dwarves who smirked behind their beards and clasped their hands, feeling the lack of rings on their fingers would have fuel for their gossip enough to last them until the Mountain was reclaimed.

Honestly the two who would mind the least would be Fíli and Kíli. They adored Dwalin as much as they loved their mother and uncle. Why shouldn’t they? He was a paragon. Dís always said so.

The talks were adjourning for the midday meal, but some commotion from the hall beyond caught the assembly’s attention and the guards took up their weapons, shifting ever so slightly toward the door. If Dís didn’t know better, she would have sworn she could hear her sons bellowing about something or other. But of course, that was impossible -

If pressed, she could not say what exactly happened. One moment she was sitting placidly beside her brother, head cocked toward the noise. The next she had a dagger that had formerly been tucked her belt, levelled at the throat of a dark-eyed young dwarf who was looking at her with an expression of utter terror.

“You _drop_ them, youngling,” she commanded, eyes as hard and piercing as the blade she held. “Now.”

He dropped them. Literally. Onto the floor, first tumbled Fíli who stood up, rubbing his bottom and striding to his mother’s side, scowling terrifically. Kíli scampered over and hid behind Dís’s legs, winding the fabric of her coat in his hands. Little Ori, who she saw now had been tucked away behind Kíli, remained where he’d fallen. For a second he merely looked from the young guard to his friends’ mother, chin quaking, eyes wide and wet. Then he threw his head back and absolutely howled with sobs.

“S’alright, Ori!” Kíli said, peeking out from behind his mother, loosening his hands from her coat so she could cross to the littlest dwarfling. “We got Mam now, she’ll sort it!”

Dís scooped Ori up in one arm, still keeping her knife trained on the taller of the two guards who held Bilfur and Catla in a slack grip. “You too,” she ordered and he complied, taking slightly more care to set them on his feet than his fellow.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Dáin thundered, false leg clanging for the first time as he ran to his cousin’s side. The two guardsmen only exchanged a panicky glance, but Dáin shouted again and brought them to attention. “Jari! Onar! Give answer.”

“They were...” the red-haired one, Jari, licked his lips and swallowed visibly as he tried to collect himself. “Well, _thought_ they were...ah...”

“We were doing our duty,” Onar supplied, looking wide-eyed at something over his lord’s shoulder that seemed to make him even more nervous than he’d been when Dís was threatening him with a blade.

“Duty?” Dáin repeated, voice rising in pitch so that it filled the room. Aside from Thorin, Balin and Dwalin, the other lords were diverting their attention to anything but the scene being enacted from the doorway that was, unfortunately, the only exit. “Since when has it been your duty to accost dwarflings?”

“We thought they were making mischief by the ponies,” Onar explained. “We were just doing our duty by your lordship.”

“Ah, just so!” Dáin explained and the guards twitched, just slightly. “You honor me by manhandling children! What will your next act of valor be, my lads? Will you slay a cat that pisses on your boots and bring me its head as tribute?”

Onar seemed thoroughly browbeaten, but Jari still had enough fight in him to say, “They claimed to be the children of the Lady Sigdís and we thought them Broadbeam whelps who - ”

“You were mistaken.” Thorin’s voice, black and deep as thunder silenced the young dwarf. His strong hands were clenched tight by his side and there was murder in his blue eyes. “Tell me, cousin, is it your habit to enlist short-bearded halfwits in your Guard?”

“It has not been ‘til today,” Dáin replied grimly. “I’d thought you both worthy inheritors of your fathers’ legacies, but it seems I’ve been mistaken. Lothar?”

The dwarf of the fearsome aspect was by his side immediately. “My Lord?”

“I trust you will discipline your son as needed? And Jari in his father’s stead?”

“Aye, my Lord.”

“See it done, then,” Dáin said and his guardsman nodded, coming forward and leading both of the younger dwarves out of the hall, his hands squeezing the back of their necks in an iron grip, like unruly pups.

Seeing that the excitement was over, the other dwarves left the hall en masse, while the dwarflings clustered closer together. Ori was still crying softly into Dís’s shoulder, even after she replaced her dagger and rubbed his back to soothe him. “Come along now, love, you’re alright, eh? No harm done.”

“Ori said we shouldn’t’ve gone,” Fíli admitted, shuffling his feet, losing some of his defiance with his mother and uncle staring down at him. “But I didn’t see no harm.”

“Because there wasn’t any,” Dáin reassured him promptly. “I thought those two would keep out of trouble guarding the ponies, more fool me.”

“He’s got Fíli’s knife,” Catla informed the adults, pointing down the corridor. “The short, black-haired one. An’ he said he stole it! Fíli done no such thing.”

“I’ll see he gets it back, my dear,” Dáin replied, hand over his heart to convey his sincerity. Looking sideways at Dís he asked her, in a joking manner, “These aren’t yours as well, I take it.”

She was not in the mood for humor at the moment. “They’re not,” she replied and Thorin stepped in to explain.

“Those are Bombur and Thyra’s eldest two, Bilfur and Catla,” he informed him. With only a little heat in his voice, he added, “You met their mother yesterday.” _And took her for a servant,_ was more than implied.

“How d’you do,” the brother and sister said as one, bobbing awkwardly. It was one thing to wonder endlessly about seeing so fine-looking a lord and actually meeting one. The pair found themselves more than usually shy.

“Fine looking children,” he nodded approvingly, saying nothing more about, but eyeing Ori curiously. “And his father and mother?”

Ori only hid his head in the crook of Dís’s neck. “This is Ori,” she said simply. “He’s a little bashful.” Giving his back another pat, she spoke firmly and said, “I’ll take this lot home,” but Dwalin came forward and lifted Kíli up and onto his shoulders.

“I’ll do it,” he volunteered. “You’ve too much to see to here.”

For the briefest instant, Dís wondered if Dwalin meant to punish her, but banished the thought from her mind. She was cruel. He was not. He was _right_ , more to the point and so Dís nodded, thanking him and unwound Ori’s arms from around her neck, so Dwalin could carry him. The poor thing was still sniffling as he was lifted into Dwalin’s strong right arm. Catla followed, twining her fingers around the straps which held his axes tightly to his back.

“What about us?” Bilfur asked, wondering if Mister Dwalin’s shoulders were broad enough that he and Fíli and Kíli could ride atop them all at once.

He was not given the opportunity to find out. “You’re the eldest,” Dwalin replied shortly. “You can walk.”

Uncharacteristically, the children were silent. If Dwalin wasn’t so heartily annoyed, it would have unnerved him. Once he caught sight of the wee ones being hauled about like parcels, he nearly unstrapped his axes and threatened them himself, never mind that they were wearing Dáin’s livery. But Dís beat him to it, moving like lightning, swift and deadly. She would have been magnificent in battle, given the chance.

The halls were cluttered with clumps of gossiping courtiers of different clans who went quiet as he passed with the children. One voice, sounding from a fissure near the entrance to the mountain, did not cease as he drew near and soon Dwalin could distinguish the words.

“We would apologize - ”

“You do not deserve to speak to them,” came the reply, low and deadly calm. Dwalin had never quite mastered that, like his own father, he had a tendency to shout when he was irate. It took no genius mind to realize it was the two idiot guardsmen, getting their comeuppance and he slowed his steps slightly, out of a perverse desire to see some justice done for this most grievous offense.

“But they didn’t look like...” the taller guardsman spoke again, in his halting way.

“Like what?” Lothar prompted him. “Like royalty? Nay, but they didn’t like like thieves either, nor wolves nor Orcs! What is it to you if some village paupers trouble the ponies - which you’ve left unguarded in your eagerness to prove that you never should have come along.”

Fíli stopped walking when he heard the word ‘paupers,’ but Dwalin grunted at him and tilted his head. “Come along,” he said sharply and the lad obeyed, trotting obediently to Dwalin’s side and winding a hand in the skirt of his coat, as Kíli had done to his mother earlier.

“Jari, see to the mounts - and _stay_ there unless you’ve true cause to leave your post.”

The red haired boy nearly ran smack into Dwalin. “‘Scuse me -” he said, but the words died in his throat when he looked up - and up - into the old warrior’s face.

Unlike Lothar, Dwalin had never mastered the art of making his voice calm and low when he was incensed. Rather more like his own father, he thundered and shouted loud enough to bring the roof down. Not as dignified as the former approach, but terrifying in the moment, he was told. So he would have shouted himself hoarse at this Jari, but he refrained. Little Ori had only just stopped his sniffles and Dwalin was confident that bellowing in his ear would just start the lad to weeping afresh.

A glare set the guardling to shaking in his boots and he fled, truly turned and ran from Dwalin as fast as his feet could take him. It was a gift, of sorts, Dwalin thought to have an appearance and reputation that made folks regard him as a bit of a threat, even when he was up to his neck in dwarflings occupying his arms and hanging off his coat.

Looking down at Fíli and Bilfur walking on either side of him, he knew a stranger would discern no visible difference between the two. Not in clothing, comportment or speech. Which was the low-born child and which the high?

Those lads had no reason to know the difference. But Dwalin did. And so he could resent them for it.

“I’ll be writing to your mother,” Dwalin heard as he exited the mountain, squinting in the sunlight.

“What?!” Onar’s stricken yelp could be heard outside the stone. “But...but...we’re not to stay so long. It’ll hardly be any time at all between her receiving the letter and us coming home.”

“Aye,” Lothar confirmed before Dwalin got too far away to hear anymore. “And so the error will be fresh in her mind when she sees you next.”

Then again, he reflected, making his way to the center of town as the two eldest children jogged to keep up with his strides, his resentment might not seem so great a threat, after all. What was his fury compared to a mother’s wrath?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Too much POV switching? I tried writing it more cleanly, but I can't help it, I want to take a peek into everyone's heads! There's a lot going on there!


	9. Chapter 9

Bilfur and Catla were left at their mother’s bakery without too much fuss. Catla was proud to report that she’d _finally_ seen the Kinglord, he was suitably grand and had declared herself and her brother fine children. Naturally, she concluded that such a glowing commendation excused herself and her brother from chores for the remainder of his visit. Their mother hardly thought so and Dwalin left with the remaining three to head for Irpa’s as Thyra patiently explained that fine children might certainly shirk their chores, but the _finest_ children performed them uncomplainingly.

Fíli, Kíli and Ori were quiet as a mead hall the morning after a feast. Fíli had a look of consternation about him that suited his round, cheerful face ill and Kíli folded his hands atop Dwalin’s head and cushioned his own cheek upon them, as though he was very tired. Little Ori stopped crying, but only just and from the tight set of his mouth, Dwalin assumed he might start up again at any time.

Dwalin hoped that he’d at least make it over the threshold of his mother’s weaving room, but no such luck. It was partially Kíli’s fault, for the uncommonly quiet little fellow was back to his usual chattering when Irpa opened the door and remarked, “This is a surprise! What are you doing back here so soon - and with such an escort?”

Kíli lifted his head up and promptly responded, before Dwalin could even open his mouth, “We got arrested.”

Instantly, like turning the tap on a spout, Ori started in weeping again, the sound of his sobs drowned out by Dori’s voice, further within in dwelling, shouting, “ _WHAT?!_ ”

For her part, Irpa only tsked. “That’s too bad,” she said, reaching out and taking Ori from Dwalin, settling him on her hip and kissing his brow. “There, there, darling, I’m sure it’s not as tragic as all that. Why I just saw you this morning - the terms of your imprisonment must have been very light indeed.”

‘Bullish’ was not a term Dwalin thought he would ever apply to Dori, but it seemed apt as he stomped to the door, breathing heavily in and out his nose, face turning steadily from pink to purple. With her free hand, his mother patted Dori’s broad shoulder.

“Don’t forget to breathe, dear,” she advised him, tilting her head to invite Dwalin and the boys inside. “Though if you’re going to swoon, I suppose you’d best do it while Dwalin’s about, I’ve got my arms full with your brother.”

The prospect of being carried around his own home by Dwalin was embarrassing enough that Dori took a deep breath and composed himself. Irpa must have been well used to the news that one of her sons was in trouble with the law for all the shock she displayed. Rubbing soothing circles on Ori’s back, she inquired as to whether or not Fíli and Kíli might like a biscuit.

“We aren’t stay - ” Dwalin began, but paused when Kíli climbed right off his back, using the straps that held his axes in place ropes and his belt as a ladder rung. It was a clever enough tactic to get down, until he grabbed hold of Dwalin’s sleev to steady him. It was an old coat, well-made when it was new, but it hadn’t been new for several decade and the sound of tearing fabric only made Dwalin close his eyes and sigh at the inevitable. New togs for a dwarf his size did not come cheap.

“Now _you’ve_ done it!” Fíli exclaimed, his expression going from worry to amazement in a flash. “I got Mam and you got Mister Dwalin! Ooh, and you got him worse.”

“Sorry, Mister Dwalin,” Kíli apologized, squirming on the spot and holding the detached sleeve up for inspection.

Taking the fabric up in his hand, Dwalin just shook his head and made to tuck it back in his belt. “No matter, lad, it was bound to go sooner or later.”

“Oh,” Kíli brightened considerably, looking between Dwalin and Irpa with an air of great expectation. “Can I still have a biscuit?”

“We’re not - ” Dwalin repeated, but Dori interrupted him.

“Oh, let them go,” he said, snatching the fabric out of Dwalin’s hand and squinting at the frayed edge. “I’ll make you presentable in the meantime.” Clucking his tongue and holding out a hand expectantly he said, “Come along, I haven’t got all day.”

“Tea, I think,” Irpa nodded. “And biscuits all around; sounds as though it’s been one of those days.”

“None for me, thanks all the same,” Dwalin said, but Irpa insisted and it would be rude to refuse her hospitality when offered. Tea. Why did everyone suddenly want nothing more than to pour tea down his throat?

 _Here’s the thing about tea,_ his mother would say when she was forced by the dictates of polite society to accept a cup when offered. _It isn’t coffee._ And that was all that needed to be said on the matter, really.

Bending to the rules of propriety, Dwalin removed his axes from his back and his knives from his belt, leaving them on the appropriately arranged hooks and shelves by the doorway. Irpa and her sons lived and worked in a Mannish building, since the wooden structure kept the air warm and moist for the benefit of the thread, but over the years they made improvements to the place so that it was a suitable home and workplace for dwarrows. The lady of the house left with the children, leaving Dori to bustle around the room, muttering to himself about something or other while Dwalin sank into an obliging chair.

Maybe he was getting old, but he wanted nothing more than to make his way home and pass out cold for a few hours. Traveling to the borderlands and hunting orcs set his blood aflame and invigorated his spirit, but listening to trade talks and engaging in a ludicrous battle of wits with a smug whelp from the East was exhausting. It had been a damned trying day and he was weary, the very last thing he wanted to do was make small talk with Dori while his best coat was fretted over like a beloved pony that was clearly past its prime.

As though he had been reading Dwalin’s thoughts, Dori remarked, “It might be time to put this one out to pasture - how long are the representatives from the Iron Hills staying?”

“Two weeks, at least, could be longer,” Dwalin answered immediately. He was counting the days until his life resumed its usual pattern. “If the talks don’t go well.”

Dori hummed and busied himself threading his needle. “Ah. Well, my stitches will hold for two weeks, but I can make no guarantees beyond that...hmm.”

The ‘hmm’ was said with definite intent, but Dwalin was not willing to rise to the bait. He had problems enough coping with those facts he did know about the visit and was not willing to tax himself further worrying about gossip. Anyway, Dwalin put no stock in rumors, why waste energy fussing over speculation and nonsense?

“Thanks,” he said suddenly, nodding at Dori. “I’ll pay you when we’re back to work.”

“Oh, no, you can pay me now,” he replied, glancing up and fixing Dwalin with a shrewd stare. “By telling me why you bore Ori weeping to our doorstep.”

 _He was doing alright 'til you screamed like a fishmonger trying to sell a bad haul,_ Dwalin thought, but did not say. Rolling his eyes he folded his arms over his chest and said, “He wasn’t arrested, if that’s what’s got you so concerned.”

“Of course he wasn’t,” Dori snapped back waspishly. “But I would like to know why our King’s most loyal Guardsman finds himself looking after children in neglect of his post.”

“There are Guards aplenty, they won’t miss me,” Dwalin shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Dáin brought enough to mount a campaign while he’s here.”

“Did he?” Dori asked, but it was clear from his tone he expected no answer. “Hmm.”  
There it was again. That irritating little buzz at the corner of his mouth, implying that he knew something Dwalin should be just _burning_ to ask him about. And the warrior was in no mood to give him the satisfaction.

“Aye. Some able warriors, but most aren’t worth the gilt on their gauntlets,” Dwalin informed him. “That was the problem. Two addle-brained younglings thought the lads got too close to their mounts - what mischief they thought a few dwarflings no higher than their knees could cause ‘em I don’t know, but they hauled them inside. Would’ve interrupted the talks if they’d come in half a moment sooner.”

Dori’s hands went still for a moment where he was reinforcing the shoulder of the garment, but he resumed his work, a frown on his face and a line forming between his brows. “Hmm,” he grunted and this time it sounded like sheer disapproval, not an invitation to inquire after his thoughts. “I told him to stay away.”

“From the ponies?” Dwalin asked incredulously, for he did not think Dori so wise in the ways of dwarflings’ mischief that he could have anticipated the morning’s debacle. The two were of an age and while Dwalin had gotten into many of the same scrapes Fíli and Kíli were now recreating (and more, if he was honest with himself), he never remembered Dori being taken to task for...anything, come to think of it. Hardworking, responsible fellow he had always been, if a little curt in his dealings with others.

“There’s no harm done,” he went on, smirking a little at the memory. “Dáin took ‘em to task well enough and Dís turned her knife on one of them. It’ll be a long while hence before they forget _that_ lesson.”

“There would have been no need for a lesson if Ori stayed away, as I told him to do,” Dori shook his head. “But he would have his friends; I suppose I can’t blame him for that.”

“Eh?” Dwalin asked, giving him an odd look. “Stay away from who?”

“ _Whom_ ,” Dori corrected automatically, then remembered with whom he was speaking and looked mildly embarrassed. “Force of habit, apologies. Erm. As I was saying, I told Ori just yesterday that Fíli and Kíli would be unavailable until the visiting Dwarves made their farewells. If he had heeded me, he should never have been involved in this unpleasantness.”

Unavailable? Fíli and Kíli? Aside from being cooed at and fussed over at the welcoming feast, it could not be said that the pair had any pressing demands on their time. If they were included in the trade talks, Dwalin could only imagine that they would demand pony rides for all their companions on the royal mounts and decree that sweets ought to accompany every meal.

Dwalin did not say a word, but as it turned, he didn’t need to. Dori was building himself up into something of a rant and when that dwarf got to talking on a topic that vexed him, there wasn’t much that could be done about it.

“My mother, of course, sent him off this morning as usual. She’s never...well, she doesn’t pay much mind to doing things the _usual_ way. And if it suits her, it suits her, but Ori’s a very sensitive child. Not delicate, I would never say delicate, but he notices things that slip by others. I was much the same way. I was trying to shield him from disappointment.”

Not entirely certain what reply he was expected to make, if any, Dwalin just made some vague noise in the back of his throat which indicated he was listening. Thinking back on it, he could not recall whether or not Dori was a sensitive child in his youth. Smarmed up to their instructors at lessons, he remembered that well enough. As a dwarfling who loathed academic instruction, Dwalin could never understand Dori’s enthusiasm for their schoolmasters - especially Master Vitr - but he realized the cleverness of his scheme eventually. Whenever messages had to be delivered, Vitr always called upon Dori to do it. Any time he needed to send a student from the room, he decided Dori was the most trustworthy and so, all told, he probably spent about as much time out of the school room as he did in the school room.

“That Dís should send her sons to play in the village while she was otherwise occupied never occurred to me,” Dori continued. “But I suppose I ought to have considered the possibility, she and my mother are cut from the same cloth. Amad married beneath her, too.”

“Tea!” Irpa announced, opening the door the merest half-second after Dori made a pronouncement about her choice of husband. The dwarrowdam did not indicate that she’d heard a word of her son’s soliloquy, merely set a cup and saucer down on a table by his elbow, the beverage gone pale with milk. “Do you take anything in yours Dwalin?”

“No, ma’am,” he replied and she smiled.

“I thought not,” she said triumphantly. “There you are - I’ll be back with a biscuit if the little nippers haven’t licked the tray clean already. Honestly, you’d think they’d never eaten before in their lives.”

Now that Dwalin thought of it, they had skipped their noontime meal. No matter, he’d fix them something wholesome before Dís and Thorin returned. Thanking Irpa for the unwanted beverage, he drank it down like a good guest. Dori’s cup was untouched and he watched his mother carefully until she swept out of the room.

“I’ve never known you to speak ill of your father,” he said after a moment’s uncomfortable silence. Dori and Nori’s father was killed in an orc attack on the road. The first of many such attacks they’d suffered, they were ill-armed and unprepared. It earned Dwalin himself a wicked scar across his right shoulder. Before the drake made vagabonds of them all, Hornbori had been an entirely respectable cloth merchant.

“I’m not,” Dori said, looking up a little sharply and regarding Dwalin closely over his stitches. “He was an excellent father and a good dwarf. Perhaps if he’d...well. That’s debateable, really. But my mother is of the royal line. Her grandfather was the younger brother of Óin I. Not exactly the most prestigious pedigree, but of the royal blood nonetheless, it was assumed if she was to marry that she would marry a cousin, perhaps, but she did not.”

“No shame in that,” Dwalin pointed out. It was encouraged, perhaps, for like to marry like, but dwarrowdams were free to marry who they chose. Irpa and Hornbori were well settled by the time Dwalin was born and he’d never heard anything said against them by anyone. It was no great scandal when they wed, he was sure.

“No, but neither is there any acclaim,” Dori replied, his mouth looking a little grim. He sensed, perhaps, that Dwalin was about to protest and hastily added, “Not that I felt there were any who bore ill-will toward my parents, mind, but it’s the little things that grate. Living in the merchant’s quarters, nearer the markets, you know. Being asked the price of steel on the way to lessons.”

Dwalin did not know. His family was well situated in their apartments in the heart of the Mountain. No one ever asked him the price of anything.

“I don’t see what this has to do with the lads,” he said after an uncomfortable pause. Though they knew each other well, he and Dori were not exactly the dearest of friends and this was not a conversation Dwalin wanted to engage in with...well, anyone, honestly.

Dori frowned, but there was no way of knowing whether he was expressing irritation with Dwalin or he was trying to complete a particularly difficult stitch. “I just didn’t want him getting his feelings hurt if Fíli and Kíli were unable to find time for him. You’ve...heard the rumors, I’m sure.”

“I don’t listen to gossip,” Dwalin replied bluntly. “And I don’t trade in it either.”

This time there could be no doubt that the frown was _definitely_ reserved for Dwalin. “Don’t you? You should. I’m sure your brother does and there is a particularly well-founded speculation about Dáin Ironfoot and his relationship with your lauded cousin.”

“Thorin?” Dwalin asked, confused.

“ _Dís_ ,” Dori said and it was clear from the slight change in the warrior’s posture that he had his full attention at last. “Why do you think the Lord of the Iron Hills journeyed all the way across the continent to a meeting which could have been handled perfectly well by his advisors? To visit family? The notion’s sweet, but hardly shrewd. No, it’s been said that he means to court the young widow and return home with her as his bride-to-be - hence the rather unnecessary number of Guardsman and advisors in his retinue.”

Dori might have been moaning and bellyaching about his degraded social position relative to Dwalin’s only moments before, but they were equals in all the ways that mattered. They’d grown up together and fought as shieldbrothers outside the gate of Moria. Their was a bond that ran deep, though it would never have been forged had the circumstances of their lives been different. In that moment, their shared hardships seemed almost a blessing; they were the only thing that kept Dwalin from seizing Dori by his coat and teaching him the same lesson about making presumptions about him and his that Borr suffered through the night before.

“Won’t happen,” Dwalin gritted out, jaw set. He put his teacup down before he crushed the delicate china to a fine powder in his hands. “She wouldn’t - _you_ know she’d never. Never leave Thorin behind, nor the boys, nor...” _me. She’d never leave me._

“Who said anything about leaving anything behind?” Dori shot back, jabbing at the coat with his needle so forcefully, it was like he was trying to kill the animal who provided the leather all over again. “If the Lady Sigdís made an alliance with the Iron Hills, don’t you think Thorin would follow? And the boys? And the whole sorry lot of us would traipse along in their wake? I for one would like to know before I pack up my life and my livelihood and slog everything back across the continent again.”

“Then you’ll be pleased to know it’s not going to happen, she’d never agree,” he retorted, getting to his feet and glaring down at Dori. “I don’t know what sorts you’ve been talking to, but if I hear more such rumors being spread about the village, I’ll tan their hides and wear ‘em as a coat.”

“Mightn’t be a bad idea,” Dori observed, neatly severing the thread with his teeth. “You’re in dire need of a new one. I don’t see what you’re so hot about, nor what’s so very wrong with Lord Dáin that Dís wouldn’t have him - if anything, the match would be a boon. To begin with, if Thorin’s still champing at the bit to recapture Erebor, it would be much easier to begin the quest in the East.”

“Aye,” Dwalin managed through grit teeth. “So it would. Yet here we are. Chew on _that_ for a while, why don’t you?” Nodding at the coat he asked, “Are we finished here?”

Dori opened his mouth, but thought better of whatever it was he wanted to say and closed it again, nodding tightly. “It’ll hold for now,” he said and stood, holding the coat out for Dwalin to shrug into.

They exchanged no more words. Irpa came back a minute later, Fíli and Kíli following behind her closely, Ori still nestled in her arms, but his face was dry and he was nibbling at a biscuit in one hand. “All out, I’m afraid,” she apologized to Dwalin, but he waved the comment off and watched as Fíli and Kíli thanked her together for her generosity.

Good lads both, Dwalin thought with a approval as each took him by the hand on the walk back to their apartment. Good lads with the best mother who ever walked beneath the earth. A mother of two young children did not remarry. It was unheard of, he reminded himself, reassured by the grips of the dwarflings’ small hands on his fingers. If nothing else, Dís would remain a mourning widow for their sakes.

Letting himself into the quiet flat, he set about looking for something to feed them to tide them over until supper. In the larder he found a hamsteak, hard cheese and half a loaf of bread that was starting to get hard. It would fry up nicely in the skillet so he wouldn’t have to listen to Kíli’s whinging that the bread made his teeth hurt.

Kíli brought a pillow into the sitting room from his bedroom and lay atop it, a stuffed ram with buttons for eyes held tight in his arms. “I’m not having a nap,” he informed Dwalin and his brother, though neither mentioned that they thought he needed one. “I just got tired eyes and need to close ‘em, s’all. If I’m not in bed, s’not a nap.”

The first of the sandwiches went to Fíli, since Dwalin did not want to wake Kíli once the lad fell asleep, one of the ram’s felt horns tucked under his chin. Fíli took small bites and swung his legs idly. He was looking at Dwalin very intently, but the older dwarf hardly thought the lad was trying to memorize his luncheon preparation. Wasn’t much to learn anyway, anything heated up in enough butter turned out alright, he’d found.

“Mister Dwalin, can I ask a question?” Fíli was tearing his crust off and trying to hide it under his plate, but Dwalin’s eyes were too good not to notice.

“If you finish your meal, you can,” he answered and Fíli took a bite of the crust and chewed slowly, with great effort. Evidently this was a question he dearly wanted an answer to.

“Me and Kíli,” he began, once he’d eaten enough of his food that Dwalin was satisfied. “We’re Longbeards, isn’t we?”

“You are,” he nodded. “Durin’s folk, aye, so we all are.”

“Not _all_ ,” Fíli pointed out. “Mister Bombur and Missus Thyra and Mister Bifur and them, they isn’t Longbeards and...they’re kin o’my Da. That’s so.”

“It is,” Dwalin replied, not entirely sure why Fíli was so curious all of a sudden, he’d never seemed to care tuppence about his genealogy before. Unless he was asking for stories about warriors of old, but always he cared more for the tales of battle than lectures about the line of succession. “But your Da’s Da was a Longbeard and that’s how it’s figured.”

“Oh,” the boy said, frowning down at his plate. “But his Mam was a Broadbeam? Don’t she count?”

“She does,” was Dwalin’s careful reply. “‘Course she does. But we trace our line back to Father Durin through his sons and grandsons and ten-times great-grandsons. You see?”

“Not really,” Fíli shrugged and shook his head, but perked up a little when he added, “we’re cousins too, right?”

“Aye,” Dwalin smiled at the boy and started in on his own sandwich; Kíli’s could wait until he roused himself. The first rule of minding wee ones was this: Let sleeping dwarflings lie. “My great-great grandfather and your great-great-great grandfather are the same.”

There was one ‘great’ too many in there, for Fíli’s face screwed up in thought and he looked more puzzled than ever. “And my aunt was your great-grandmother,” Dwalin added, watching with pleasure as Fíli’s face smoothed out and he smiled for the first time all day.

“Oh, that’s easier,” he remarked with relief. “Mam’s grandmother, who she’s named for?”

“The very same,” Dwalin replied easily. “Good deal like your Ma too, only she was taller and had a few more ink markings.”

Fíli’s blue eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Taller than Mam?” he asked, for he had never seen a dwarrowdam who could top his mother in height. “Was she as big as you?”

“Nearly,” Dwalin confirmed and Fíli’s mouth dropped open.

“ _Really?_ ” he squeaked in disbelief and roused his brother from his not-nap.

“Breakfast?” Kíli asked blearily, rubbing his eyes with his fist and tottering over to the table. Dwalin lifted him onto his lap and let the boy start in on the second half of his sandwich.

“Mister Dwalin’s telling me ‘bout his Auntie,” Fíli informed his brother. “She was a _giant_.”

Half-chewed ham and cheese fell out of Kíli’s mouth and back onto the plate. “Was she? No wonder you’re so big, Mister Dwalin. Did she eat folks?”

Dwalin chuckled and shook his head, “Nah, only gnawed ‘em a bit, if they vexed her...”

Fíli and Kíli kept him well occupied for the remainder of the afternoon until the door flew open and the lads ran up to their mother for an embrace. Watching Dís kneel on the floor and kiss their heads, one after the other, again and again, Dwalin felt some of the apprehension that sat low in his guts ease away. For Dís would _never_ forsake her sons for the sake of an alliance with the Iron Hills.

He would ask Balin, he decided, declining Thorin’s offer to stay on through supper. Just so the matter could be laid to rest. Once his brother laughed at him for listening to idle gossip, he could be assured that there was no weight at all to Dori’s earlier assertions. Might even sleep well that night, when all was said and done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My poor babies. This is essentially the calm before the storm. I feel especially bad for little Fíli who is beginning to suspect that something is UP - to say nothing of dear Dwalin. And yep, before anyone asks, this is basically the extent of his culinary repertoire: coffee, roast meats and grilled cheese. 
> 
> And the Ris are always sneak-attacking my fics! I was not expecting Dori to show up with all of his backstory in tow, but there he was! I'm only half following the movie!canon of all three boys having different fathers, Dori and Nori do have the same dad, but he died when Nori was a baby, so basically Dori was Nori's father figure (and we all know how well that worked out).


	10. Chapter 10

Bildr kept a very respectable public house and was most obliging when Balin requested a small room for a private meeting. Nar pulled him aside after the disgraceful conduct of the young guardsmen was sorted out and asked if there wasn’t somewhere the two of them might speak, away from the crowds. Balin was so vexed over the thoughtless idiocy of the young dwarves that he couldn’t collect himself enough to think of a reason why he shouldn’t meet with him and so agreed.

Now, as the landlord left them alone to enjoy tall pints of ale and savory steak and kidney pies, he was pleased he’d not been able to beg off the request. Nar’s talk of marriage brokering the night previous stuck in his mind all during the meetings and he watched, hawk-eyed, every time the scarred dwarf’s attention fell on Dís. She conducted herself admirably and with great dignity, Balin was quite proud of her - even when she left her seat to threaten the guardsmen who treated the children so appallingly. 

Indeed, he was grateful she reached them first and not Thorin for his King likely would not have exercised his sister’s restraint and Balin rather hoped that the talks would go on for at least two days together before any blood was shed. Once Lothar took his son and the other boy away to face their punishment, little else was said about the matter, aside from heads shaken over the foolishness of youth and a few compliments on Dís’s swiftness in unsheathing her blade.

Balin quite lost track of Nar in all the excitement and by the time he fell into conversation with the courtier again, his face betrayed little of his thoughts apart from his keen interest in speaking to Balin again. They arrived at the pub around the same time, Nar looking grim and imposing as usual and Balin adopting a bland smile as he greeted friends and acquaintances, waving off a request from Bofur to join him for a pint as Bildr ushered them into a private, upstairs room.

“Borr sends his regrets, he was unfortunately detained and could not join us,” Nar said as he took up his fork and tucked into his meal. His split lip curved upward into a smirk. “I spared the lad asking him directly, but I believe he was worried that your brother might also be in attendance. It made him a little fire-shy.”

“Ah,” Balin said, knowing he should feel sorrier for young Borr and his bruised face, but he was unable to muster up a great deal of sympathy. “I do apologize on my brother’s behalf if Dwalin has cause Borr any permanent damage - ”

“Oh, hardly,” Nar waved a hand through the air carelessly and settled back down in his chair, rolling his eyes. “Besides, he got what he deserved for his audacity. Never pick a fight you have no chance of winning. There’s a thin line between bravery and foolishness, the boy certainly crossed it last night. I can tell you, I bear Dwalin no ill-will - in fact, I should thank him for a lesson well taught.”

“I’ll pass the message on,” Balin said and smiled pleasantly. There was nothing in Nar’s manner or speech that ought to have put him on edge, but he did not quite trust him. Perhaps it was the way he spoke so easily of arranging lives that were not his own, like a puppetmaster, working Dáin as though he was a dancing doll on strings. 

On the surface, Balin supposed he and Nar seemed very much alike. Battle-tested warriors who found a position at the right hand of their kings, but aside from those essentials, Balin was sure they could not be more different. The most important difference being that, once he gleaned the facts of Nar’s little marriage plot, he fully intended to relate all he’d learned to Thorin and Dís personally. He highly doubted Nar would pay Dáin the same courtesy when he extracted the knowledge he sought from Balin.

He was old enough and shrewd enough to know that Nar had not requested the pleasure of his company to learn how they fared in the Blue Mountains. There was something he hoped to gain from this meeting, which was only fair; Balin would certainly not have agreed to meet Nar socially if there wasn’t something he wanted from him. Once he returned home, he rather hoped never to meet Nar again outside of a formal gathering and he assumed the feeling was mutual.

But first they would lead each other a dance. Dwarves enjoyed little reputation for cunning and manipulation, but there were always a few about with forked tongues and those who did not become thieves and counterfeiters often found themselves in the King’s council. 

“Your grandmother,” Nar began and Balin allowed himself to be impressed by his bringing up the topic of family, to begin with. It was a bold tactic. “Fares well, she had no particular message to communicate to you, or your brother. I assume you speak often.”

“Tolerably often, aye,” Balin agreed, which was to say that they spoke as often as either of them could tolerate which was an exchange of two or three letters a year. He supposed it possible that Nar sought to unsettle him, but then it was just as likely he was making pleasant conversation, though Balin somehow doubted it. “I’m pleased to hear that she’s in good health.”

“You spent some time in the Iron Hills, did you not?” Nar asked, his tone light, but his eyes sharp. “I mean, as a child?” 

Nar referred to a brief visit his parents undertook with himself and his brother when Balin was just shy of beginning his apprenticeship in the Guard. His uncle was overseeing the recovery of hundreds of damaged books and scrolls that had been charred away in a vault fire. He was gone five years and missed Dwalin’s birth entirely, which was the excuse his mother made when she told him they were having a holiday. Later, he found out that she and his father agreed that Uncle Haldr needed a reprieve from his mother’s company. Even during the brief spells their people took refuge in the Iron Hills after the coming of the drake, he avoided his grandmother as much as was seemly; it was no hardship, she hardly sought him out either.

“Our residence was of brief duration,” Balin smiled evasively and took a dram of ale. “We arrived in springtime and only remained until Durin’s Day. Thrór could not spare my parents indefinitely.”

“Good souls both,” Nar nodded knowingly. Balin bit back a frown and forced his shoulders not to hunch. For what did Nar know of it? He was a stripling boy when his father had spilled thrice his weight in Orcish blood and his mother matched wits with Elves who’d seen the rise and fall of thousands of years and found herself the victor. “Tragedy. Your people suffer much.”

“Not as much as in years past,” Balin replied diplomatically, but it was true. This life they carved out for themselves in the Blue Mountains was not what they had known in Erebor. Not by a longshot. Their dwellings were smaller, less well appointed, their purses smaller and their luxuries few, but they woke up in the same beds every morning. They had roofs over their heads, most of their people enjoyed regular employment and, more to the point, they were _safe_. Settled. 

For some of their folk, young and old, it would always rankle, the wound was one that festered in their minds and hearts, but for him it was not so. With each passing year, Balin found himself more and more satisfied with what they’d gained, even as he knew he would forever grieve what they’d lost. 

“That’s very well worded,” Nar said with a sardonic smile, “but come now, one fellow clansman to another, you can speak freely. I’m sure this,” he gestured to the smoke-blackened ceiling in need of a scour, “isn’t what you saw for yourself as a young guardsman under the Mountain?”

“Certainly not,” Balin agreed, his tone amiable, but his speech careful. He thought to put his time in as a member of the Guard until Dwalin was old enough to take it over for him. Then he would change his craft to suit his temperament and spend his days in blissful scholastic contemplation. Trying to teach the heirs of Durin all they were to know of languages, history, geography, warfare, sums, calligraphy and literature using a dozen books of varying quality and detail supplemented with his own memory did not fit into that idealized picture from his youth in the slightest. “But needs must. We’ve found our own way.”

Nar’s smile grew sharp and his tutted in a nearly chiding way, though he was not all _that_ much older than Balin himself. “Come now, coz,” he sighed. “We’ve got our pride, of course, we’re dwarves, what have we but our skill and pride? I know as well as you do that the households we serve have been at odds with one another for nigh on three generations now. I believe we might drop the pretense.”

“I’d hardly say we were at odds,” Balin countered. No wonder Nar sported such impressive wounds upon his face, he was as relentless in battle as he was in speech. It was known that he would personally break the enemy’s line or die in the attempt. Balin was not as liberally marked, not as much as Nar, certainly, nor even as heavily as his father or his brother. He made rather more heavy use of his shield than they and he would not let Nar’s blows hit home. “Grór and Náin were ever friends to us when we required aid.”

“You requested it but little,” Nar pointed out, correctly. “Years would pass, a letter here, some souls arriving to settle there, but only a few at a time and none for nearly forty years now. Naturally, we assumed you were doing quite well for yourselves in the West and...well...let me merely state, without the intention of giving offense, that our expectations didn’t match the reality. But then, Thorin is very young.”

Balin was biting his tongue so hard he had to make an effort not to draw blood. _I’d like to see you try_ , he wanted to say, as he looked upon Nar with his embroidered robes and fingers heavy with rings of gold. _When you are driven from your homeland with nothing more than the clothes on your back and a sword at your side, I’d like to see you build yourself and your people up from_ nothing _in less than a century, to go from half-starved homeless wanderers to a people settled._

Thorin had done remarkably. Better than many who had come before him, but such disloyalty would not cross Balin’s lips. Not for all the gold in Erebor. 

“I’ve always ranked Thorin’s achievements very highly,” Balin said, once he’d unclenched his jaw and pried his teeth out of his tongue. “As you, I am sure, do Dáin’s.”

Nar laughed easily, but genuinely. A fond laugh, tinged with a kind of fatherly warmth. “Well, if I say Thorin is young then Dáin’s practically a babe in swaddling. He has conducted himself well and, I think wisely, provided he doesn’t go off too far on his own.” Nar shook his head and leaned across the table as though confiding some secret to Balin. “He’s a tender-hearted boy, Dáin. Well-educated, to be sure...you know, he and Thorin remind me of another pair from not so very long ago.

“Ah now,” Balin chuckled and his smile grew a little sharp as he did so. “You’re not so aged that you remember Thrór and Grór as strplings.”

“Perhaps not,” Nar acknowledged. “But I am old enough to remember what was said of them. Thrór with all his pride and spirit, leading the people through force of will, it seemed. Grór, the scholar, less brash by half. More thoughtful.”

 _More likely to die in bed_ , Balin thought uncharitably. It was disrespectful in the extreme to speak ill of the dead, so Balin kept his tongue in his mouth, but he never forgot that Náin commanded the regiment from the Iron Hills outside the gate of Moria while his father sat home, tugging his beard, waiting on news from the front. Thrór’s body might have been treated in the most obscene fashion, but he lost his life upon the field of battle and even now rested in the Halls of Waiting.

It bordered on blasphemy, but Balin wondered if he saw his youngest brother there at all. 

“I knew very little of Grór,” Balin shrugged and finished off the remains of his supper. “He was kind to me when I was a child and I never found him less than hospitable when I was grown.”

Pointedly, Balin left out the obligatory compliment about his prowess in battle, for he had never seen him fight. 

Folding his hands upon the table, Balin leaned forward and looked at Nar beneath his eyebrows. “But surely you didn’t want to meet with me simply to discuss our fallen lords,” he said and Nar’s smile more closely resembled a grimace. “Thoughtful or brash as they might have been.”

“Too right,” Nar agreed, his manner more brisk and businesslike. “I came to discuss a living lord and lady. Please pay my highest compliments to your lady cousin, she was very well received today, plain-spoken and intelligent. A credit to herself and her brother King.”

“Could you not do so yourself?” Balin asked mildly. Dís plucked his sleeve earlier that day, nudging him and inclining her head toward Nar when she thought he wasn’t paying attention. _That one doesn’t like me,_ she whispered in his ear. _He’s been staring all afternoon like a vulture over some half dead thing every time I open my mouth. If he doesn’t want to hear what I’ve got to say, why doesn’t he stuff his ears?_

“I’m sure it’d sound sweeter coming from you. Dáin was rather in awe of her, truth be told, especially after she frightened Onar out of his wits. Devoted to her children, I take it?”

“What mother isn’t?” Balin asked, appalled by Nar’s offhanded tone when he spoke of Dís’s love for her sons as though they were some coat she was fond of or a particular jewel she favored. “I feel I must tell you, if you seek to rekindle that discussion in which we were engaged last evening, that I am afraid your hopes will be disappointed.” Elbows upon the table now, Balin leaned closer, conspiratorially close and looked Nar straight in the eyes that the other dwarf would not mistake his meaning. “Even if remarriage were not so rare as to be nearly unheard of in these later days, Dís would not break the tradition while her sons are still so young.”

“Well, if she preferred to keep them close, that would be of little matter. You said the father’s kinfolk were all dead?”

“Aye,” Balin said. “His father’s kin certainly, but his mother has a good many cousins still residing in the village.”

“Of course,” Nar chuckled and leaned back in his chair, folding his arms neatly over his chest. “Broadbeams all? They can have no claim upon them.”

“They’d not stake claims,” Balin replied confidently. “Not claims of law, perhaps, but claims of love, surely.”

Nar threw his head back and laughed heartily. “You and your brother both fancy a bit of posy, eh? Sounds more natural coming from you, I must say. As the lads are young, I can well understand her reluctance to leave them behind, never let it be said I don’t have a feeling heart, but _surely_ the young lady would seek better for her children than her brother’s pride can provide.”

Balin’s mind lit up with a thousand images, Thorin rocking a fretful Fíli to sleep in the days after Víli died and Dís found sleep so infrequently. Lifting both boys into his arms when they ran to him as the smoke curled from the forge and their mother lowered the shop awning. Dís’s arms around her brother’s neck and her lips against his cheek when they passed a merry evening and Thorin lifting her off her feet as he let loose a rare laugh. Dwalin and Thorin racing into the hills with one lad each atop their shoulders, Dís and Balin himself tearing after them so they wouldn’t lose sight of any of them. 

Nar, he reminded himself, knew nothing of that. He knew Thorin as grim-faced young warrior, taciturn and unsmiling in company, Dís as his clever sister wearing simple jewels. In many ways they deserved far more than they had, but Balin truly felt that they had exactly what they needed.

“You do not know my lady as I do,” Balin said after a pregnant pause. “She values her family far above the jewels of the earth.”

“Above the elevation of her people?” Nar asked skeptically. “I admit I do not know her well, but anyone could see that she burned when her sons were lumped in with those little Broadbeam paupers and humiliated before the finest the Seven Kingdoms have to offer. And I need hardly tell you, you’re shrewd enough to know, an alliance with my house would allow for her sons’...shall we say, security?”

“Security?” Balin repeated. 

“For a noblewoman to marry beneath her is of only a little consequence,” Nar explained. “Dashed expectations, perhaps a few bruised hearts, but that is the only cost. To take up with one of uncertain ancestry...it makes vulnerable the line, as I am sure you know.” Draining his tankard, he let the empty mug rest on the table with a thud. “Here in the Blue Mountains, I am sure few will question their rights, but there are sharp tongues in the Iron Hills - and sharper swords. Legitimacy, you understand, is paramount when upon it rests the bounty of Erebor.”

If a northern wind had blown open the door and guttered the candles, Balin could not have felt more cold. His mind was whirling at the implication resting on the tip of Nar’s tongue, the almost _treasonous_ musings he implied. Fíli and Kíli were Thorin’s sister-sons, his sons in law and heirs. Heirs to a kingdom conquered and half a world away, but heirs nevertheless. 

The sound of a few coins landing heavily upon the table made Balin look up. Nar had risen and collected his cloak. His stomach sank like lead; this dwarf was cleverer and more dangerous by far than Balin had given him credit for being. And his own silence all but confirmed that the points he raised, wicked and unthinkable though they might be, were cause for concern nevertheless.

“Think - for I’m sure she will,” Nar said, fastening his cloak. “Thorin’s pride has kept your people well away from the East and where has it gotten you? Living in two-room flats, the sun shining in to wake you mornings. Your princes, the great hope of your people, running through the streets with dirty faces. If your princess marries Dáin, you’ll live as you were meant to, cloaked in sables, bedecked in gems. None would mistake who those boys are again. Surely that will satisfy the pride of Erebor better than Western poverty.”

Balin rose slowly, after Nar took his leave of him and trudged home with a heavy heart and mind half-numb with horrifying possibilities that made him sick to think on long. Perhaps he’d been too long away from court that Nar’s ponderings and schemings seemed merely laughable to him only hours ago. Despite his own revulsion, his own preferences to keep their precious little family as close as they were now, he saw that there was wisdom in Nar’s plans. And he saw how they might look deeply attractive and awfully tempting.

He had only just opened the doorway to his own two-room flat when he came nose to chest with Dwalin, his brother’s faded shirtfront taking up his entire field of vision until Balin stepped back and looked him in the face. Dwalin’s mouth was set in a thin line and his brow furrowed, but his dark eyes betrayed the emotions that he hid from so many. His brother was anxious. That never boded well. 

“Tell me,” he said, hardly waiting for Balin to close the door behind him. “That there’s no truth to the rumors Dáin’s gone Mannish and wants to drag Dís back East with him.”

 _Tell me_. It was voiced like an order, but Balin heard the plea. _Tell me._

He should have done as his brother wanted. If he’d been more master of himself Balin would have laughed it off as a rumor, a flight of fancy, scolded his brother for setting too much stock in rumors like a tiresome peddler. _Of course not,_ he should have said, eyebrows arching in surprise. _Where’d you hear that wild story?_

Instead he asked, “How did you know?” And watched as his brother’s face, stone a moment ago, crumpled into a look of the purest, most heart-rending anguish, before he masked it all beneath anger and erupted like a boil, spewing its pus upon the world.


	11. Chapter 11

_Dwalin’s thoughtful,_ their mother observed one day after watching her youngest son work himself into a tizzy over a perceived slight from Thorin. Ridiculous, perhaps, that Balin should have such a clear memory of such a small incident, but although the pair often fought with one another - and still did - rarely were they _angry_ with one another.

He did not remember what precipitated the incident, only that tempers were running high and feelings were destined to be hurt. The two exchanged words as harsh as any small child could muster, got into a spat which resulted in shouting and tears as their parents looked on in amused concern, only separating the two when Thorin pulled Dwalin’s hair and Dwalin shoved his cousin so hard he toppled over and struck his head on the ground. As Thorin howled, Dwalin took himself off to the corner without being told and sat facing the wall in mulish silence.

Even at that tender age, Dwalin presented himself to the world rather like a boulder, unstoppable when he meant to accomplish something and immobile when he refused to cooperate. At his best, he was a sweet-faced little dwarfling with an affectionate disposition, but Balin would never apply the word ‘thoughtful’ if asked to describe his brother.

He must have told his mother as much, or laughed at her remark, thinking she was joking.

 _You don’t think so?_ Ama asked him, smiling in a way which indicated that although she loved her eldest son very dearly, she thought he was being quite dim. _Ah, well. Maybe get a bit more thoughtful yourself and you’ll see, dearest._

When Dwalin popped out of his sulk half a moment later and insisted on apologizing to Thorin personally. After an exchange of ‘Sorry’ from both parties and a hug, they tottered off and played in peace again.

It was a pattern, Balin noticed, that did not abate when Dwalin got older, indeed, it only became more subtle. Like their father, he would shout and rail in a thunderous voice to bring the roof down in his upset, then go oddly quiet, taking himself away in silence. Not, as Balin first supposed when he was very young, because he had spent his anger, but because he was considering the matter, turning it over and over in his mind. Thinking about it, as his mother recognized so long ago. If he found himself in the right, there was nothing more to be said about it and he could carry a grudge as long and as hard as any dwarf. If he found himself in the wrong, then he would apologize, honorable enough to admit when he had made a mistake.

But first, there was the rage, to be borne like a wave ceaselessly crashing into the shore, pounding rock and eroding land as it churned and devoured.

“You’ve all gone Mannish!” Dwalin declared, throwing his arms up as though he could pluck his problems from the air and strike them down. “Every last one of you! It’s all settled, then? You and Nar and his thrice-damned idiot son? Got the contract all drawn up? Which of you will be the one to forge her signature?”

It was a bait and Balin did not rise to it; he was only mortal himself, of course. Though he understood Dwalin’s anger, he could hardly stop his own from rising in his chest. Turning away from his brother, he unclasped his cloak and hung it upon a peg.

But Dwalin would not be ignored. “You haven’t asked her, have you? You’d not be so shamefaced you won’t even look me in the eye if you had.”

“There are several flaws in your argument,” Balin said, not turning his head and thus confirming his brother’s suspicious about his shame. “Allow me the indulgence of refuting them. Point the first, _I_ have settled nothing. This has nothing whatsoever to do with me - ”

“You’re a conspirator, I’d say - ”

“Point the _second_ ,” Balin went on, turning around and folding his arms over his chest to delay the likelihood that he might strike his brother. “This has nothing whatsoever to do with _you_ either. Truly, the only two players who matter at all are Dís herself and Dáin.”

Neither of whom were aware of any of these machinations at all, of course. He would go to Thorin and Dís on the morrow, there would be no profit in speaking to either of them now, long past the supper hour. Fíli and Kíli would be abed anyway and if Balin knew his cousins at all, he anticipated a great deal of shouting. After the day they’d had, those lads needed all the sleep they could get.

“Can you hear yourself?” Dwalin demanded, sawing the air with his hands. “ _Players_ \- as if it’s all some grand theatrical. Does that make Nar the playwright, then? And you, you’ve got yourself a box seat and are watching to see how it all comes out.”

“Stop yammering,” Balin shoved past Dwalin, but there was really nowhere to go. Nar was not wrong when he spoke of the unsuitability of two-room flats. If they could afford a proper set of apartments, he might have at least put a door between himself and his brother’s ire. “I’ll tell you true, _now_ you sound like a fool. I shall address the matter with Dís and Thorin directly on the morrow and if she is amenable - ”

“She won’t be.” Dwalin followed him, was looming over him, but Balin knew his brother too well and had seen sights more terrifying than him to be in the least bit put off. Dwalin might have the advantage over him in size and, perhaps, strength too, but in this game of squabbling and cruelties Balin always - _always_ \- had the upper hand. If his words were steel, his tongue was his sword arm and it wielded a mighty weapon indeed.

“Do you speak for her?” he demanded, unable to reign his temper any longer. “If you think I would force her hand, would you stay it? Keep her under lock and key until Dáin leaves? All so you’ll be kept quite safe to go on pining after her unimpeded.”

It was a strong thrust; perhaps too strong. Dwalin looked run through.

And there it was. Not in the craggy face, crossed with scars, nor in the line of his shoulders, broad and straight as ever they were. It was in the eyes, shadowed under dark brows, that the depth of Dwalin’s feeling lay. They widened first, then narrowed and in that subtle movement, was all the betrayal and hurt in the world.

“That’s low,” Dwalin said when he found his tongue again. Aye, wounded. So Balin would strike hard and fast once more, before he could get his legs under him and recover.

“Low, aye, but honest,” he said and Dwalin backed away a step, giving ground. “If she won’t have you for love, it doesn’t mean she won’t have Dáin for a kingdom. She’s a wise girl, despite her years. I’ve never had a quarrel with any decision she’s made - not a _one_.”

Dwalin was searching his face now, looking desperate for any hint that Balin’s words were crafted to sting more than they were a reflection of the truths he held. But that was the edge of the dagger of Balin’s arguments, they were always true even if they were unkind. Despite his sympathy for Dwalin’s loss and continued grief over what would never be between himself and Dís, he still thought she had made the right decision in marrying elsewhere.

Silence from Dwalin. Now to land the killing blow.

“ _Think_ ,” Balin said, tilting his chin up and looking his brother full in the face. “An alliance with the Iron Hills would benefit our people immensely. You know our history. It would heal a schism between our houses that began with the death Dáin I, the wounds of which are still felt to this day. All this mistrust and sore feelings is no good among dwarves of the same Clan, it’s not natural. Such a marriage would silence the worst of it.”

“Or make it worse than ever!” Dwalin countered, still fierce in his death-throes. “If you won’t have a care for Dís, think of Thorin! _He_ \- ”

“He has been chasing the dream of Erebor since we were run out of our home,” Balin lost what remained of his composure and threw his arms into the air, fingers curling tight into his palms. “Use your head! If Thorin wishes to reclaim the Mountain within his lifetime, what good does it do us to remain a world away?”

“Don’t you chide me for not thinking!” Dwalin shouted so loudly and so passionately the that walls trembled. “S’all fine for you to go about talking of kingdoms and strategy, but you’ve forgotten who your _players_ are. You forget Dáin himself - do you think Dís would marry him? That Thorin would _want_ her to? He who had their grandfather and brother burnt to a cinder, who ordered our father’s blood and bone to be scattered to the winds while we had to...”

He stopped his harangue when his voice broke. Dwalin swallowed hard and for just a moment, lips pressed together to stop their quaking, looking so young and melancholy that Balin wanted to stop this fight, to say something soothing, to comfort him, but he didn’t dare. Not when giving in to sentimentality meant he would lose this battle.

“War is death,” Balin supplied dispassionately. “Our father knew that. It’s a wonder you haven’t learned the same lesson by now. Dáin was right to do what he did and he was younger then by half a century than you are now. It’s a childish grudge you hold. Petty and unbecoming.”

“Petty?” Dwalin repeated, incredulous. “ _Petty?_ We had to take our father’s arms and armor from him like graverobbers, _burn_ him like an offering, no songs, no prayers - the lowliest younglings beside the most seasoned warriors together - not a one of their Names spoke aloud and you say I have a child’s grudge to resent it still?”

“You live too much in the past,” Balin shook his head. “You and Thorin both. I am thinking of the future - _I_ am willing to let the dead lie.”

“And if they don’t lie?”

It was against custom if not law to allow the dead to remain unburied. Burning was acceptable only in the most severe circumstances - even those dwarves who perished on the road in their exile were given funerals as proper as could be conducted under the circumstances. Their bodies were laid to rest in stone or earth when they could not manage stone, the places marked. It was important to memorialize the dead, to secure them in the stone and create a place for the living to go to mourn and remember.

There was no commemorative stone outside of Moria. No grave. They carried the memories of their kin and allies in their hearts and minds only and memory was a slippery eel. It was the greatest fear of their generation that those noble dwarves who gave their lives so that their ancestors halls would not be desecrated would fade in time, out of memory, out of legend into nothing at all.

What Balin said next might have gotten him killed had he been speaking to anyone else, save Dwalin, who only stayed his fists out of filial love. “Then let them be forgotten.”

Too much. It was too far and such a slight against their father, their kin and their shieldbrothers that Dwalin’s mouth actually fell open in horror before he made for the door. In spite of his anger, Dwalin still had his honor and he would not strike his elder brother - though the impulse was only just got under control and he could not resist swinging his arm hard into Balin’s shoulder on his way out. Balin did not move, nor did he demand to know his brother’s course. Where Dwalin was going was immaterial; he would return eventually, he always did.

Yet Dwalin did not clomp out noisily, jaws locked up tight. Instead he paused, knuckles white where he gripped the door. “I don’t understand you sometimes,” he said, half in contempt and half in genuine confusion. “Not at all.”

 _Leave it,_ an instinctual voice whispered to him urgently. _Let him go. Don’t say a word._

The Seven Fathers and Six Mothers were wrought of stone and clay, unbending and unbreakable. Their descendents were made of softer stuff by far. Balin himself was built of flesh, blood, and bone. He was tired. He was frustrated. And he was so very angry.

“Just as well,” he spat and the words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself, before his body realized what his mind only just grasped: the battle was over and he’d won his petty victory. “For it’s said I’m the clever one of the two of us.”

The door slammed in Dwalin’s wake, lock groaning. It cracked and gave way entirely when Balin’s fist landed heavy upon it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was by far the most painful chapter to write and, wouldn't you know, there's more to come.


	12. Chapter 12

On the other side of the door, Dwalin heard the sharp sound, echoing down the passageway, but he did not turn, nor did he acknowledge his brother’s evident ire. Balin did not deserve a jot of his care that night, not at all.

Brilliant was his elder brother and kind most of the time, but he had a dragon’s own cunning about him some days and his wits were as sharp as a warg’s fang. All well and good when confronting the untrustworthy, but his words stung when turned upon his own flesh and blood. Dwalin was too old and hardened for tears. Even as he seethed and burned with rage, he knew he had it coming. There was no sense in fighting a battle he couldn’t win and, as Balin himself said, he had always been the cleverer of the two of them.

The night air was chill and heavy with the scent of an impending rainstorm. Dimly, Dwalin was aware that he ought to have brought his cloak, but he wasn’t about to swallow his pride and go back in to retrieve it. He wasn’t going to face his brother again until he was too drunk to care that he was a two-timing, forked-tongued, marriage brokering _bastard_ with no respect for the dead.

Bypassers scrambled to get out of his way as he stalked through the streets; he must have had an ornery look about him, which was no surprise, he’d _kill_ for a drink. Preferably with Thorin, who spent all day looking as miserable as a cat caught in a downpour, but seeking out his friend in this state was a bad idea. In the first place, Thorin would probably refuse to leave the house, begging off because it wouldn’t do to appear before the assembled Lords of the Seven Kingdoms with a pounding head and red eyes the next day. In the second, he knew he would not hold his tongue about Balin’s treachery, at least not without shouting his frustration so he woke the neighbors and it wasn’t any of _their_ business.

Dwalin stalked the streets with no set destination in mind, but his feet took him to the seedier part of town - ah, right, a brawl would be _just_ the thing right about now, he was so furious he could hardly think straight, just a fight to take the edge off and then he could trust himself to collect Thorin from whatever miserable corner of his mind he’d retreated two and if he was less miserable himself, Dwalin could probably persuade him to have _one_ drink and once that barrier was breached one drink could become _two_ drinks that could lead to three or more -

A hand grasping quick and eel-like for the money purse hanging from his belt was seized in an iron grip and the body of the fool it was attached to flung up against the nearest wall. Dwalin only had an impression of wide hazel eyes and a wheezing gasp of, “‘Evening,” before he recognized the skinny little _idiot_ he had by the throat.

“Young Nori,” he growled, loosening his hold enough that the lad could breathe, but not setting him back on his feet.

The scamp had the gall to smile at him in a would-be-innocent way, but for the fact that he’d played the pickpocket seconds before. “You look like a fellow who could use a drink,” he gasped, prying at Dwalin’s fingers uselessly.

The larger dwarf let him go and Nori slid down the wall, massaging his throat, still smiling a blandly pleasant smile. “You don’t know the half of it - where’d you come from anyway?”

“Oh, hereabouts,” Nori shrugged, lowering his hand when he ascertained that there was no permanent damage. “Couldn’t hardly stay away when there’s such doings in town, could I?”

“If you get it into your head to go thieving from the visiting lords, I’ll lock your fetters myself,” Dwalin said as a promise and a warning. Nori was a waster, a scoundrel, and a thief, by rights Dwalin ought to have turned him in since he was probably wanted for something somewhere, but he had an almost fraternal interest in the lad. They looked after one another, the exiles of Erebor and unless the order to seize him was given by Thorin himself, Dwalin would let Nori go on his way to his next misadventure.

At the moment, Nori did not seem particularly inclined to go anywhere. “I’m just visiting family!” the lad protested, raising both hands. Dwalin, who caught the glint of steel up his sleeve, did not lay down his guard. “You’re jumpy tonight - some assassination attempt or other been made? Or narrowly averted?”

“What would you know of it?” he asked suspiciously, but he had no real expectation that Nori had a hand in anything so devious as that. The circle of miscreants he ran with was humbler by far.

“Nothing at all!” Nori insisted. “Visiting family, I told you. Returning from my wanderings to the bosom of hearth and home, as the songs say.”

“You’ve run out of money,” Dwalin said as comprehension dawned. Nori never did anything just for the sake of it, always he had a need or an end goal. He didn’t entirely trust the little rogue, but Dwalin fancied he understood him well enough.

Nodding, Nori admitted, “That too. I’ll never turn down a free meal when it’s offered - mind, I think there’s a price to pay for listening to all of Dori’s _nagging_ , but at least Ori’s always happy to see me. Well, him and my mother. Missed the supper bell, I shouldn’t wonder, care to join me at the pub? I wasn’t joking when I said you were a fellow who looks like he could use a drink.”

Nori was not the sort of person Dwalin went drinking with, not if he wanted to get drunk. He’d always been a tricky child who’d grown into a crooked dwarrow lad who thought himself twice as clever as he truly was and was three times as bold as was good for him. When he left home at the tender age of sixty-five only to turn up half a year later with half-healed rope burns and the imprints of shackles around his wrists, Dwalin was disappointed, but not surprised. Still, he’d kept his neck well away from the blade of a sword sharp enough to do him permanent damage. He was lucky, anyway, if not particularly clever or skilled.

The last time Dwalin saw him was before the first frost of winter. The clothes he wore were old, a mishmash of Western wools and Eastern silks, but he seemed well enough, if a bit too thin. He did look as if he needed a meal and the lateness of the hour meant that Irpa likely hadn’t left a candle burning waiting up for him.

“Fine,” Dwalin said shortly. “Keep your hands away from my purse and I’ll buy you a plate of something.”

“You’re a gem,” Nori grinned, raising a hand to pat Dwalin on the arm, but lowering it when he got a glare in return. “And I wasn’t _really_ going to rob you - ”

“Damn right you weren’t,” Dwalin agreed, lengthening his strides so that Nori had to jog to keep up. He led them well away from the Boar’s Head Tavern and toward Bildr’s place, better-lit and probably packed with dwarves who all knew Nori on sight. He’d find himself in quite a tight spot if he got it in his head to try something stupid. If nothing else, word would get back to his mother and even the most hardened criminal would be hard-pressed to withstand a mother’s disapproval entirely without shame.

Trotting along at his side like an obedient dog, Nori chattered along without pausing to draw breath. Either he really had been lonely for the bosom of hearth and home or the promise of a free meal made him disgustingly cheerful. “So, how’re you? And Dís and the boys? Fíli and Kíli must be jumping out of their skins at all the excitement, eh?”

“Don’t know why you’re asking me,” Dwalin said sharply. “I’m not their father.”

“Might as well be,” Nori replied, dodging the swipe aimed for his head at the last minute. “Hey!” he shouted indignantly. “What? It’s a compliment! Got a bee in your bonnet about Dís, eh? What’s she done now?”  
  
Dwalin stopped walking abruptly and Nori skidded to a halt, heels grinding into the dirt to keep from colliding with him. Slowly, Dwalin turned and for the first time since he crept up behind him, Nori’s smile faded and he began to have the good sense to look nervous. “If you want your jaw left unbroken to chew your meal, keep your mouth shut.”

Nori took in a breath. Held it. And then let it go in one woosh of air before he nodded. “Alright,” he agreed, uneasily. They walked along in silence for a minute or two before he ventured awkwardly, “You want to talk about it?”

“Do I _look_ like I want to talk about it?” Dwalin snarled, then stopped again - this time, Nori _did_ slam into his back with a muffled curse. A few yards away, he spied Borr limping toward the pub. His nose was still swollen and both eyes were puffy, purple and black. He held his right arm stiffly, but forewent the sling Gróin outfitted him with, either because he was healed up enough that it was unnecessary or he simply didn’t want to be seen wearing it in public.

Nori poked his head around Dwalin’s side and followed his line of vision as Borr disappeared inside the door. “Friend of yours?” Nori asked with a sly grin, which vanished when Dwalin gave him a sharp look. “Right, stupid question,” the younger dwarf acknowledged. “Enemy, then?”

“Not worth the title.”

“Alright,” Nori nodded, slowly, eyeing Borr through the window. “Just someone Dwalin, son of Fundin doesn’t much like. Which means he’s a bastard since, as I’ve seen it, you’ve got good taste in friends.”

“Have I?” Dwalin asked, gritting his teeth and clenching his fists. “Here I am passing the night with _you_.”

“Eh, that’s only because you’re big-hearted,” he observed. Inclining his head toward the pub he asked, “Are we still eating? Or can’t you be in the same room together?”

“No matter,” Dwalin scowled. “He’ll keep his distance if he knows what’s good for him.” But Dwalin did not make a move toward the pub, instead he stood in the street, frowning at the doorway. What _did_ Borr know? Was he privy to the arrangement Balin had been discussing with his father? Was that where all his fool talk of love and treachery stemmed from the night previous?

Nori shifted his weight from foot to foot like an impatient child who needed to use the necessary. “So...we’re going now?” he asked. “Come along, if you won’t tell me what’s got you so wound up, could you drop it altogether? Leaving me in suspense is a rotten thing to do.”

Dwalin gave Nori a searching look, “I’d have a looser tongue if I didn’t think you’d sell my words to the highest bidder.”

“Fair enough,” Nori spread his hands helplessly and sauntered off to the pub, pausing mid-stride to add over his shoulder, “If it’s about Dáin whisking Dís off to the Iron Hills, I wouldn’t worry - that little secret’s not worth nearly as much as you’d think.”

This time, when Dwalin slammed Nori up against the nearest wall, he knew to brace himself for the impact. Before Dwalin had a chance to open his mouth, Nori was already speaking. “More than just a rumor, then? I wasn’t sure, but seeing as how you’re so hot about it - ”

“Who started it?” Dwalin growled.

“No one,” was unsatisfying response he got. “Or everyone, what’s it matter? The whole countryside’s abuzz with it, ever since word got out that Lord Dáin was crossing the continent personally there’s been talk. Apparently the whole world wondered why she didn’t marry him years ago.”

Dwalin’s fingers tightened and he choked, “Don’t shoot the messenger! I’ll have you know that I said it’s because she’s got no sense - ” that strong hand squeezed like a vice and Nori squeaked out, “ - and a big heart. Truth, isn’t it?”

“She’s got sense,” Dwalin replied, letting Nori drop down to his feet with a relieved sigh. Sense and a grudge long-held. But Dís was not Thorin and, as Nori said, she had a big heart. Would she marry, as Balin said, for a kingdom?

“If you say so,” Nori replied easily. After glancing once more at the pub, he tilted his head back to look Dwalin in the eyes. “And that puffy-faced dwarfling has summat to do with it?”

“Name’s Borr, son of Lord Nar of the Iron Hills, former Captain of the Guard. Far as I can tell, his father’s arranged the whole thing,” Dwalin admitted, seeing no reason to keep silent on the subject since Nori appeared to know just as much as he did. Damn his eyes.

“And you made him give answer for it?”

“Not for _that_ ,” Dwalin clarified. “But I made him give answer.”

“Hmm.” Nori’s face got a pinched, hungry look about it. Not for food, but for sport. “I could see if I can’t make him give _more_ answers, if you’re up for it.”

The look Dwalin fixed him with was skeptical in the extreme. “Could you? Can’t say I think much of your conversation.”

“Well, sacrifices were made,” Nori admitted, one hand straying toward his throat. “But I got you to tell me your woes _and_ a promise of supper. Not bad for the price of a sore throat - c’mon, trust me.”

“I don’t trust you farther’n I can throw you,” Dwalin snorted.

Another wolfish grin was his reply, “You’ve got to admit, that’s got to be a fair distance.”

Something, reluctance or desire, flashed across Dwalin’s face, for Nori bounced on the balls of his feet, excitement flaring in every line of him when he sensed that he was now met with acquiescence. Even before Dwalin nodded his agreement, Nori was bounding down the street toward Bildr’s, stopping short just out of sight of the windows to relay his plan. “Right, I’ll just need you to play your part in this,” he rubbed his hands together eagerly. “You’re going to have to go into the pub, sit down and have a drink. Oh, and punch me in the face, if you please.”

“Punch you?” Dwalin repeated, nonplussed.

“Aye, and make it a good one,” Nori confirmed, jerking his head toward the entryway. “There’s nothing to bond two strangers together faster than a shared defeat - as you well know. Come on, let’s not waste time.”

Evidently, Dwalin _really_ needed to let off steam. Either that or Nori had been much more annoying than he intended. When they stood before the doorway to Bildr’s alehouse, he found himself falling backwards through the door, gasping and choking from a jab in the guts so forceful that he found himself looking down at his stomach, to insure that Dwalin had not actually punched _through_ his bowels.

All his vitals seemed to be inside of him still, he noted as his vision went grey around the edges and Dwalin stepped over his prone body to order a pint from the landlord. Nori was still trying to remember how to breathe properly when a shadow fell over him and he looked up to see exactly the dwarf whose eye he’d been hoping to catch.

 _I really am far too good at this,_ he thought dizzily.

“Alright?” the lad asked, extending a hand to help Nori up.

Nori nodded, taking the offered hand to heave himself to his feet. “Aye, reckon so,” he said, swallowing hard as his stomach protested the sudden movement and heaved. Keeping his eyes trained on Dwalin’s back warily, he added, “That’ll teach me to mind my manners around royalty.”

Borr made a discontented humming sound in the back of his throat. “A fine lineage doesn’t help much when you go in for a contest of wits against a bear,” he shook his head ruefully, then winced when he wrenched some still-healing portion of his anatomy in the process. “Can I buy you a drink?”

There was nothing but the utmost sincerity in Nori’s face at the offer. “I’d be no dwarf if I turned down such an offer,” he replied with a short half-bow. “Thanks. Bori, son of Dori, at your service.”

“Borr, son of Nar, at yours,” Borr replied. “Of the Iron Hills. Where do you hail from?”

“I’m Erebor-born, but my family was not one whose names a great lord would have heard,” he said, almost apologetically.

“I’m afraid great names are the only one’s I’m familiar with - though well I know great families can breed poor offspring,” Borr said, in a manner entirely too smug for one who could not move his right arm without giving a little wince. Nori noticed that he led them to a table as far away from where Dwalin was sitting as he could get - nor was Dwalin entirely alone, for Nori spied a dark-skinned dwarf who sported some damned impressive facial scars calling him over to a table.

“So they can,” Nori acknowledged, giving Dwalin a pointed glance before sitting down. A serving maid lay two mugs of ale - and a platter of sausages with a loaf of crusty bread, at Nori’s request - upon the table and left them in peace. “You’d think a fellow wasn’t allowed to have his own thoughts where - oh, but I don’t want to offend you.”

“Nonsense,” Borr waved off the notion of offense easily. “I value the free exchange of ideas - unlike _some_ who haven’t the temperament to bear open discourse.”

“You’re very reasonable - and very kind,” Nori said gratefully. It was a little trick of his when he wanted to appear harmless: imitate Dori at his most flattering and arse-kissing. “But then, perhaps I was out of line. As I understand, my lord is...protective of the Lady Sigdís.”

“Really?” Borr asked, eyebrows raised. “I’ve not seen evidence of that. The two scarcely speak at all in my presence, though he was looking after one of the young princes. I assumed it was on King Thorin’s order that he did so.”

Nori stuffed his mouth full of sausages so that he could avoid biting back his laughter. If Borr missed the way Dís and Dwalin made eyes at each other all the live-long day, missed the fact that they cozied right up together whenever they had the chance and _especially_ missed the fact that he was just as much a father to her sons as ever Thorin was, no _wonder_ he vexed Dwalin so much that he broke his nose. Probably he hoped to knock some sense into him.

“Well, it must be difficult,” Nori said quietly. “To raise two dwarflings alone - and so close in age.”

“Ah,” Borr rolled his eyes. “Well, that’s her doing, isn’t it? These Broadbeams are positively Mannish in their ways, I hear most families have seven or eight living children running around - of course, all children are a blessing from the Maker’s own hand - but you know what they say about too much of a good thing.”

“Pardon me,” Nori cocked his head and screwed his mouth up, the perfect image of confusion. “Broadbeam? I’d thought her husband was of Durin’s line.”

“Half of him is - or, was,” Borr acknowledged. “But the other half went back to Belegost and before you ask, no, not to Azaghâl. Miners, the lot of them - _coal_.”

Nori let out a low whistle, but beneath the table the fingers of his left hand were digging tight into one of his knees. Bony knees, Víli always said fondly. Not good for sitting on. It shouldn’t trouble him as much as it did, to hear his former friend spoken of with disdain, but this pub carried a lot of memories, most of a happy bent and all involving Víli in some way or other. Nori didn’t have heroes, not really, but even he could admit that there were some exceptional sorts out and about. Víli was one of the best souls he’d ever known. A coal miner, aye, but he was pure gold, as Dís was fond of saying.

Víli had come to live in the house he shared with his mother and brother, tucked in a spare room on the first floor, his rent provided most of their income until Ama and Dori established themselves of weavers of quality in the village. Nori didn’t know what to make of him, at first, this poorly spoken dwarf with bright gold hair and a smile that didn’t dampen in the worst weather or after hearing the most unfortunate news. At first, Nori wasn’t sure if he even liked him all that much, he was too loud, too cheerful, too friendly, but he gave in before long. It was impossible not to like Víli - even this Borr lad might have liked him, if he’d known him.

“I suppose she loved him, though,” Nori said speculatively.

Borr gave another ungraceful snort and winced - that one must have hurt his nose. “Aye, she _must_ have, for he left her nothing. She and her sons went to live with King Thorin upon his death, he didn’t even leave her a home of her own.”

Now that was untrue - Dís and Thorin always lived together in that same little apartment ever since they arrived in the Ered Luin with their mother. Víli went to live with them once they were married, it was the most sensible solution, but if Borr didn’t know that already, Nori wasn’t about to tell him.

“Pity,” Nori observed, taking a drink and wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “But they are the King’s heirs, are they not? Surely he’s happy to take a guiding hand in their upbringing.”

“I’d say so,” Borr’s eyes darted around in a secretive way before he leaned across the table. “Doesn’t much matter to you, I’m sure, but between us, I think that whole line would be better served if the Lady Sigdís gave the throne of Erebor a proper heir. One whose lineage would not be questioned in either quarter.”

Now _that_ was interesting. “Either?” Nori asked, drawing his eyebrows together and leaving his mouth slightly agape, like Ori when he tried to puzzle out a word he’d never seen written down before.

“Between us, between _us_ , mind,” Borr said and he too looked at Dwalin who was deep in conversation with the other warrior. “There’s talk Thorin’s no fit heir. His grandfather, it’s known, but not much spoken of, suffered the dragon madness. They call him King, but only because his father is gone - _gone_ , you know, dead or alive we cannot say. There’s a taint in that line, a division between old King Dáin’s sons - one I think that a union with _our_ Lord Dáin could mend.”

Nori did not have to force his eyes wide at that pronouncement. These Iron Hills dwarves were sly as foxes, weren’t they? He had it in him to admire their cunning even as all that was loyal within him bucked and writhed with indignation. To the throne of Erebor he felt little tied, but to Dís and Thorin - _especially_ Dís who always let him under her roof and called him little brother - he would remain steadfast, as steadfast as someone with his fickle temperament could. He’d planned only a brief stay in the Blue Mountains, enough time to get a few good meals and wheedle some money out of his mother before Dori talked her out of it, but now he thought he might stay a good long while. Until these Iron Hills dwarves were gone and took their big ideas with them.

“I wish them joy,” Nori said, pulling away and rocking his stool onto its back legs. Raising his mug he smiled weakly and said, “To mending fences.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Borr knocked his mug against Nori’s and took a draught. “Though - ah, again, between us - I’d not weep if their chief guardsman remained behind. The fence. Metaphorically speaking.”

“Dwalin the Fearsome?” Nori asked, using the ridiculous title that Dwalin gained for himself in the War of Orcs and Dwarves. “Forgive me if I presume, but, er...he was responsible for...” Nori gestured vaguely at Borr’s face and the younger dwarf nodded.

“Disagreement over poetry - if you can believe it,” Borr whispered. “He was _wrong_ , of course, as I hear it, he can’t even read. Which gives me cause to hope, he can’t suffer overmuch from depth of feeling. The warrior - the pure warrior - goes where the fight is. And Dáin is, by nature, a peacemaker. His court would hold little interest for Dwalin the Fearsome.”

“Gracious!” Nori exclaimed when a cuckoo popped out of a nearby clock to signal the hour. It was such a spot-on impression of his elder brother that he almost startled himself. “Is that the time? I must go, but I thank you very much for the meal, and the...illuminating conversation.” He pumped Borr’s hand vigorously and favored him with a deep bow.

“Thank you for the company,” Borr inclined his head in turn. “I hope we shall meet again.”

“Oh, I’ve no doubt of it,” Nori nodded and walked off on brisk feet. He was halfway out the door when Borr called, _What did you say your name was, again?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys. Nori. I cannot make him stay away. When I started this story, I thought, "Alright, there won't be any Ris in this one." Then Ori turned up. And Dori. But I was holding firm, I said, "Nope. No Nori. Not this time." And lo and behold, here he is. At least he's making himself useful.


	13. Chapter 13

Dís was coiled tight as the spring attached to the bell inside the bakeshop. Its high jangling grated on her last nerve, but she smiled reflexively when she heard a merry voice cry out, "Hallo! Aren't you a sight for sore eyes?"

To be greeted by such cheer, so early in the day nearly made her turn on her heel and walk right back out of the bakery doors, but she managed to muster a half-hearted smile for the lad who hailed her. It was Túfi, Thyra’s youngest brother, short, wiry and eternally good-natured with an untamable bush of strawberry-blonde hair that perched atop his head like a nest. Had to be something in the water, Dís decided when he ducked into the back of the shop, presumably to fetch his sister. Those Broadbeams could smile on the darkest days.

Not that it was quite daylight yet, nor did it promise to be particularly dark when the sun did pop up over the mountains, but Dís had awakened far before her usual time and couldn’t go back to sleep. She knew only one person who would be bustling about and so her leaden feet brought her to Thyra’s family’s shop. Dís did relax when Túfi welcomed her in without the merest bit of hesitation; she would not have been surprised if she was turned out on her ear after the way Thyra and the children were treated by the visitors from the Iron Hills.

But it was not to be and Thyra was all smiles when she came out of the back, forearms and the tip of her nose streaked in flour. “And don’t you look look done in?” she clucked, grasping Dís’s arm and pulling her around the counter toward the ovens. “Haven’t you slept at all?”

“A bit, not enough,” she confessed.

Thyra tutted again and urged her to take a seat on an empty stool. “I’d offer to get you something, but the bread’s only just gone in, t’won’t be done for a good while - how’re you faring?”

It was an honest question and deserved an honest answer, but Dís was hardly inclined to give one for if she answered truthfully, they might spend the entire morning talking of her troubles while the bread burned and the shop was descended upon by half the village, furious, because they had nothing to sustain them for the workday. “Been better,” she settled on.

Thyra eyed her up and down critically. “Coffee, I think,” she said with a decisive nod.

Their family was not half as big as Thyra’s and she and Thorin had exhausted last winter’s supply already, but even as Dís raised her hand and said, “You don’t - ” a cup was already being poured and pressed into her outstretched palm.

“I want to,” Thyra replied simply. “Anyway, you’re in low spirits, anyone can see that a mile off, but _I_ know it’s bad when you’ve gone all Thorinish.”

That was a descriptor Dís had never encountered before. She raised her head from her cup, a hint of a smile dancing around her mouth. “Thorinish?”

“Aye,” Thyra nodded again with a small, fond smile that belied her exasperated sigh. “Wee little answers as don’t tell me half o’what’s troubling you. And that line ‘tween your brows, deep as a gorge.”

Frowning, Dís rubbed at her forehead and only succeeded in making the worry line more prominent than before. “Well, when one of your dear friends is grossly insulted and your children are dragging into the interior chambers of the mountain by two guardsmen in two days, it makes you testy.”

“I’m not offended,” Thyra remarked lightly. “And so you shouldn’t be. It was an honest mistake - and from what I got out of Bili and Cat, sounds as though the two lads what snatched them was just a bit overeager...and so was a certain dwarrowlass of my acquaintance, as I hear tell.”

Dís rolled her eyes and sipped her coffee, the color in her cheeks easily attributed to the warmth of the kitchen. Perhaps, in the cold unlight of not-yet-morning, she could admit that she had overreacted. None of the children seemed particularly distressed (save Ori), they were only vexed and more because they were taken away from the ponies than because they felt particularly insulted by the lack of consideration.

Fíli and Kíli seemed to have forgotten about it entirely by the time she returned home. No doubt it was much the same for Bilfur and Catla, but her mind would not be so easily calmed, she wasn’t of such a forgiving disposition as Thyra or her sons. Thorinish, indeed.

“The knife might’ve been overdoing it,” she admitted. “But I still think those lads needed a good sharp scare.”

“Sharp’s a word for it,” Thyra winked and Dís laughed outright.

“Ah, this sort of work doesn’t suit me,” she drained the rest of the cup and toyed with the still-warm metal in her hands. “Give me a hammer and an anvil, I’ll live out the rest of my days contented. I’m too stupid for politicking.”

“Oh, nonsense,” Thyra took the cup from her and refilled it; Dís didn’t have the willpower to refuse, even as she did feel slightly guilty. Thorin would probably kill a fellow for a cup of coffee; by rights she ought to run it back to him, but she honestly couldn’t say that his joy at finding a cup of coffee at his elbow would outweigh his anger at being rudely awakened from slumber. “I’m sure you’re doing just fine, you was born for it, after all.”

“Perhaps, but not raised for it,” she sighed ruefully. It was no one’s fault, but she was utterly at sea during many of the meetings. Battle strategy she understood. Trade, aye, the price of things and what it took to feed a mountain, those were matters she could chime in on with confidence, but treaties? Law? Elvish? She closed her mouth and tried not to look too confused. “There’s this one, Lord Nar, spends most of his time staring at me, with this queer look on his face. Unsettling.”

“Could be he reckons you’re pretty,” Thyra winked before her brother hailed her and she had to turn the breads to ensure even cooking..

Dís rolled her eyes and called after her, “Oh, aye, so pretty he turns his mouth up in a sneer every time he looks on me - or, could be that’s just what his face looks like, he’s covered o’er in scars, a proper warrior. His son’s a scholar and an idiot.”

Thyra tutted again, sweat beading on her brow, “That’s a pity, don’t sound t’me as he’s well-suited to his trade.”

“He’s not,” her friend said flatly, glowering at the floor. “He tried to argue a point of literature with Dwalin and got it the wrong way round - sorry, I’m sure you don’t want to hear a blow-by-blow of the whole sorry day.”

Dís certainly had no desire to relive it herself. She scarcely looked Dwalin’s way during the meetings though there were many times when she was tempted, one glance at those warm brown eyes when one of the lords was being particularly irritating. When she knew they’d be thinking the exact same thing at the exact same time and she’d feel like she wasn’t floundering in a sea of ignorance all day.

Dwarves did not stand upon ceremonies in many ways, but those traditions they did hold firm to and those forms of address and bows of courtesy that they made before one another must be held to else she risked sparking wounded feelings among powerful allies. She would never shame her brother nor her people in such a way, not willingly, but she had not been raised at court. She remembered, dimly, sitting upon her grandfather’s lap or her grandmother’s shoulder at times, but all she had to do was smile and greet their visitors, who were all inclined to be charmed by a child.

Now she was grown and not half so charming, she was sure. If there wasn’t a snide comment about her late husband and his lineage, it was an ill-conceived joke about her children’s speech or manners. It could be they simply had nothing else to say and making light of tragedy was easier than weeping over it - but Dís could not think of her marriage or her children as tragic. Their exile was, but within the sorrow there were moments of happiness. Cousin Dáin was little better. He never mentioned the drake’s attack, nor their exile.

If she had been a Lady under the Mountain, these noble lords would have known what to say to her. If she was low-born, like Thyra, they would have known how to speak to her, or not speak to her if that was their choice. She was something else, a chimera wrought of nobility, hardship and trial and none of these strangers seemed to know what to do with her. She honestly could not say how she preferred to be spoken to by her peers; she would prefer they left them alone.

“Sorry, what?” Dís said when she was sure that enough time had elapsed that Thyra had spoken to her and she simply hadn’t responded.

“I haven’t said anything,” Thyra stood before her and held her arms out invitingly.

Dís’s shoulders shifted and she looked away. “Nah, I’m fine, really, just being morose - ”

“You’re not fine and you’re not being morose, you come here now,” she ordered, but it wasn’t stern. There was nothing but deepest sympathy in her voice and expression. Dís decided then and there that Thyra was worth a thousand of those noble lords she daily endured. With only a touch of reluctance she stood up and let Thyra wrap her in a warm embrace. She smelled of fresh baked bread and Dís sighed and tucked Thyra’s head under her chin; maybe she could simply stay here in the kitchen. She’d knead loaves, make herself useful - she was dying for lack of real labor.

“No wonder you have half a score dwarflings,” Dís murmured, giving Thyra a bit of a squeeze. She had a nice layer of cushion over her muscles, made her a lovely cuddling partner. “If I could, I’d take you for wife.”

Thyra giggled and tilted her head up to give her a kiss on the cheek. “Ah, you’re bad as Hervor for flirting,” she remarked fondly. “But if Bombur’d never been born, I might think on it.”

With a wink she departed for the ovens, returning with a two thick slices of bread, cracked wheat, slathered thick with butter and jam with two sausage links stuffed between them. “Oh, you’re a diamond,” Dís mumbled after she’d taken a particularly large bite.

“I’ll never understand it,” Thyra shook her head. “But you turned me eldest boy onto it, s’how he takes his sausage now and won’t do no different.”

“Jam and sausage are meant to be together,” Dís said authoritatively. “And jam and bacon. And jam and ham. Everything’s better with jam.”

“I should pack you off for them meetings with a jar of the stuff in your pocket,” Thyra laughed and patted Dís on the arm. As she bustled around the shop, filling a sack with muffins to take back to Thorin and the boys, she said, “If you’ve time, stop by for a cuppa afterward, eh?”

“I’d like that,” Dís said gratefully, handing over a few coins to pay for their breakfast when Thyra handed her the bag. “If I can, I will.”

“And bring the lads,” she urged as they walked around to the front of the shop, which was stuffed to the gills with half the artisans and miners in the village, clamoring for breakfast; Túfi’s eyes silently pleaded with his sister for help. “And Thorin too! We’ve not gone through our winter store of coffee yet, I’m sure he could use a mug.”

“Aye!” Dís grinned. “And how! We’ll be by, if not tonight, soon!”

“I’ll be holding you to it!” Thyra called as Dís pushed and squeezed her way out of the door. “Alright, alright, don’t be tearing your beards out! One at a time!”

It was such an ordinary start to the day that Dís felt more herself than she had in ages when she jogged the rest of the way home so her brother and sons would have a hot breakfast. It wasn’t until she dusted off her second-best coat, trudged back to the interior of the mountain and found that today Dwalin would not meet her eyes that anxiety once again dug its claws in her belly and all her calm her visit with Thyra granted her vanished.

* * *

Once the meetings broke up and the guards changed over, Dwalin intended to meet Nori at and learn what he had gleaned from his conversation with Borr, but he was waylaid by Lothar.

The two did not exchange much more than muttered greetings the night before, the Southern dwarf bought him a drink and Dwalin was fairly sure he’d thanked him, but he’d not been up for conversation the night before.

Giving young Nori a hearty blow in the stomach didn’t satisfy Dwalin nearly as much as it ought to have done. Give him a warg to cripple, an orc to skewer and then some of the fight might be worked out properly. Sending a stripling lad to the floor with one hit couldn’t compare.

“Meant to say as much last night, but I thought you mightn’t want to hear it,” Lothar began. When he approached Dwalin, his mouth was twisted wryly, but soon smoothed to seriousness. “They ought to speak for themselves, but they’re not permitted to leave the paddock until they’re bidden. I hope you’ll accept my sincere apologies on behalf of my son and his companion.”

“No harm done,” Dwalin said, not exactly voicing his forgiveness. “Everyone’s an idiot at that age.”

“True enough,” Lothar stepped aside and beckoned Dwalin to follow him into a mostly abandoned corridor. “But it’s a damned nuisance - even if those lads hadn’t been Thorin’s heirs, there wasn’t any reason to send ‘em off. Told them as much, if they can’t distinguish between what’s harmless and what’s a threat, they’ll be useless in battle, stabbing at everything that moves. Again, I am sorry.”

The rules of courtesy dictated that regardless of his own wounded pride, he ought to accept an apology honestly given. Dwalin was not in the mood to be courteous.

“It’s not me you should be apologizing too,” he said and added, for the second time in as many days, “I’m not their father.”

“You’re close, though,” Lothar observed. “To the family.”

“I am family.” Dwalin’s jaw clenched as he remembered the conversation he had with Fíli the day prior. How sure he was that Dís would not forsake her kinfolk for an alliance with the Iron Hills. And how Balin, damn his hands, had shaken the foundations of his world. The idle talk of the rest of the world he could ignore, but his brother was the wisest dwarf he knew. And if he said something was so, then it must be. Even if he spoke in a moment of cruelty, he had never known his brother to lie, no matter how angry he was.

But that didn’t mean Dwalin had to speak to him. He avoided everyone that day, as much as he could, from Dís to Thorin, but he hadn’t paid Balin the least bit of mind. It was a matter of practicality, he told himself, more than wounded pride. After all, it wouldn’t do for them to get into a brawl without the excuse of it being a demonstration of skill for the younglings.

Lothar had him buttonholed, but of all the dwarves under the mountain, he was one whose company Dwalin objected to the least. He spoke sensibly, at least, and was not so well-known or close to him that he risked anything by the exchange. He would never risk as much with anyone, not even an orc with a blade aimed for his guts, as he did with his family. It was a simple soldier’s wisdom: the one closest to you stood to do you the greatest damage.

“Of course,” Lothar nodded. “I meant no offense - I saw how you were with my lady’s sons, very admirable, the husband having passed on.”

It was just that sort of comment that ordinarily put Dwalin’s guard up, voiced as it usually was with a raised brow or a sneer, but Lothar had nothing but honest compliment in his face. If Dwalin was in the mood for compliments, he might have been more gracious.

With a grunt, he nodded his head in acknowledgment, “They’re good lads.”

“‘Course,” Lothar replied. “And young, that young you want as many around as care for ‘em, it’s good for dwarflings. Jari, his father stayed behind to guard the mountain, I’ve taken him on a bit.” He smirked as he confided, “Rather wish I hadn’t, now.”

“Troublesome?”

“Nay and that’s the trouble,” Lothar shook his head. “He’s eager - too eager, mind - to please and falls all over himself trying to do right. Mark me, he’ll work himself so hard ‘fore the end of the week, he’ll fall asleep at his post.”

“Not only the wee ones who need looking after,” Dwalin replied, almost testily. Nori was notoriously unreliable and their window of opportunity was closing with every passing minute.

Lothar did not seem inclined to let him go. “Not only,” he said. There was a long pause, his dark eyes squinted up at Dwalin and he seemed to come to some kind of decision within himself for he tilted his head up and lowered his voice a tone. “Nar’s much the same with Dáin, you may have noticed.”

_Noticed? The way he arranges his life and those in it like a matchmaker, a mother, and a commander at war, aye, I noticed._

He spoke none of his inner scorn, but his scowl said it all for him.

“He was close to King Náin,” Lothar replied to Dwalin’s unsaid criticism. “As, I suspect, you yourself are with King Thorin. Admirable loyalty, even unto death. Beyond death, for he looks on Dáin as if he were his own - and, if you don’t go spreading this around, I’ll wager his fonder of him than he is of Borr more often than not.”

“Can’t say I fault his favor,” Dwalin replied shortly and Lothar laughed.

“Borr takes some...growing on. I’ve known him all his life, I’m used to him, he’s a trial to strangers,” Lothar admitted. “I was a stranger when I arrived in the Iron Hills - nigh on a century ago. Never intended to stay, but it’s a noble, respectable court full of honest dwarves. Hope your people know it.”

“We’d never question the nobility of the court of the Iron Hills,” Dwalin said coldly. With a short bow, he took his leave. “I’ve business elsewhere, thank you for your apology.”

“Thank you for permitting me to bend your ear,” Lothar bowed in turn. “Until we meet again.”

“‘Til then,” Dwalin said and strode away from him as quickly as was dignified. Nori, luckily, had not given him up. In fact, he was sitting upon the paddock fence, feeding slices of an apple to Dáin’s mount; Onar and Jari were hovering nearby, looking at him with identical expressions of concerned confusion. Neither made a move to seize him.

Dwalin resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Take little ones who didn’t mean any harm into custody, but let the thief go free. Never mind that he had business with this particular thief.

At his summoning whistle, Nori hopped off the fence and sauntered over to where Dwalin stood. He wasted not a moment, rising up on his toes to whisper into his ear, “Those rumors that’ve been flying about Dáin and Dís? They aren’t rumors.”


	14. Chapter 14

Dís turned in as early as her sons that night, as soon as they’d mopped up the last of yesterday’s stew with that morning’s bread, she rolled her shoulders, informed Thorin that she was leaving the dishes ‘til morning and packed herself into her room with her sons when the sky was still touched pink with the last of daylight. Her brother, unable to sleep, decided to lighten her workload and washed the dishes himself, but he frowned when he threw the dirty water out of the back window onto the street, feeling the weight of the thick-bottomed cooking pot in his hands.

How much longer would their forge fire remain unlit? It was a question he only permitted to touch his mind briefly in the days before the arrival of the visiting dignitaries because he knew it would consume his thoughts until he could think of nothing else. They had savings, but very little when all was said and done and the spring season was fast upon them. By rights, they should be up to their elbows in work, plows for the Men, picks for the Dwarves, tools for they that sowed and they that mined. Yet it was closing in on a week that neither he nor Dís nor Dwalin had set foot in their smithy and, necessary absence or not, they were losing business. 

Scrubbing his hands roughly over his face, Thorin surveyed their darkened sitting room with a grimace. What would he say, Dáin of the Iron Hills, if he heard his cousin beg the pardon of all the Lords of the Seven Kingdoms for his absence, but he had horses to shoe, nails to sharpen and hinges to mend? Would he laugh, thinking it all a joke? Or would he color and look away, pitying and ashamed?

Thorin knew both reactions would stir nothing but foulest contempt in his heart, so he said nothing, but he daily weighed his money purse and worried.

The night was a cold one, once he’d dumped out the old water, he shuttered the windows against the chill and poked at the fireplace trying to stir up a bit of heat without adding more fuel. As he did so, he ran his hands uselessly over the mantle. Thorin had been over that same spot half a dozen times in the last few days, he knew there was no sign of his pipe there, nor in the coal scuttle, nor hung up with the poker and brush. It would do little to fill their coffers, but a smoke might calm his mind, soothe down the frayed edges of his nerves. Thyra gave them a standing invitation for coffee, Dís informed him, one he would be happy to accept, but he was not about to go bursting into Bombur’s home in the middle of the night. He was not that desperate yet.

At the moment, desperation only drove him into the sewing basket still tucked away beneath his bed. It was not out of the realm of possibility that his pipe might have fallen in there in the chaos that preceded Dáin’s arrival. So intent upon his task was he that he did not notice there was someone at the door until the firm knocking became a resounding hammering.

Immediately Thorin was on his feet, his entire body tense and he retrieved a knife from his belt, hung over his bedpost before he made his way to the door. He relaxed marginally when he saw Dwalin through the peephole, but sighed gustily when he saw who it was he had with him. 

Opening the door a crack, Thorin poked his head out and asked, without a word of polite greeting, “What’s he done now?”

Nori actually had the audacity to look insulted. “You got us turned around,” he protested to Dwalin. “I hadn’t any idea we were visiting my brother before we got to Dís and Thorin’s.”

“Dís is abed,” Thorin informed the young rascal, still not opening the door to invite him in; chances are he’d flee straight away; he only ever came by the house with the intention of seeing Dís. If his sister wasn’t possessed of such a soft spot for the foolish lad, he’d never let him cross the threshold. “I’m sure you know now isn’t the best time for me to be seen haboring known criminals under my roof in any case.”

“I’m not wanted,” Nori waved a hand carelessly, “in _this_ part of the continent. And I’ve got information for you that’ll make you want to open that door a bit wider - with all due respect, sir.”

There wasn’t an ounce of respect, not in his sneer, nor the cocky tilt of his head or the defiant stare with which he fixed Thorin. Dwalin was curiously silent and Thorin directed his words to him. “What’s he talking about? I was in the middle of something important.”

“Let him in,” Dwalin said. He spoke so flat and tonelessly that Thorin was quite taken aback.His strong arms hung limply at his side and his dark eyes were dull and lifeless, it was unnerving. Thorin could not recall when he had last seen his friend so despondent - ah, but he could. The night before Dís was wedded to Víli. Thorin took him out and got him drunk enough to fall asleep, but not enough to brawl. Dwalin never thanked him and Thorin never asked him to; theirs was an understanding went beyond words. 

So it was now; Dwalin insisted that Nori be allowed to come in and Thorin did not question him. He opened the door and ushered them inside with some obligatory request to keep their voices down so they didn’t disturb the boys. All the while, he kept a close eye on Dwalin. They had very little time together, for all that they’d been within ten feet of each other the last few days. Thorin had been sullen and taciturn, as ever he was when he felt he was in a situation that was out of his control. Dwalin was practically mute in his role as guardsmen and why not? What did either of them truly have to say to those passing dignitaries who would return to their glittering halls while they headed for the smoke-stained walls of the smithy and the din of the anvil?

It seemed Dwalin still played the role of guardsmen, for he did not take his usual seat in the armchair by the fire, but stood ramrod straight, his mouth a thin, harsh line behind his beard. Nori, by contrast, looked between the two of them, then over Thorin’s shoulder to the door that led to the room Dís shared with Fíli and Kíli.

“Anyone going to rouse her highness?” he asked. “What I’ve got to say’s her business too - mostly her business, rather.”

“What have you got to say?” Thorin asked, furrowing his brow. His sister might insist that young Nori make himself at home, but he was not about to offer a chair or a cup of tea; he could state his purpose and make his goodnights. Dís, he knew, was just as tired as he was and if he could grant her a night of uninterrupted sleep, he would. Whatever news Nori brought with him from his time abroad was surely not so pressing that it could not wait until the morning to be told. If Thorin thought he could sleep for two hours together, he would have told the youngling to sod off until then, no matter what Dwalin had to say about it.

Nori looked questioningly at Dwalin, who nodded without looking at either of them. His eyes were fixed upon a spot on the wall somewhere over Thorin’s head. “Tell him,” he commanded.

With one last longing glance at Dís’s door, Nori let out a gusty sigh and shook his head. “I don’t know if you’ve been told - assuming you haven’t, seems pretty hush-hush,” he began to Thorin. “But - ah, mayhap I should ask, what’s your feeling on marriage brokering?”

Thorin’s face suddenly felt very hot and his stomach dropped down to his bowels. In an instant, he was transported back across miles of countryside, over mountains, through towns both great and mean, forests dense and sparse to the Iron Hills themselves and a comfortable room deep within the mountain. Two dwarflings slept fitfully on a bed beside him, hungry and exhausted from travel while his father juggled their fates in his hands with all the light wielding of a roadside conjurer. 

_“Náin has offered to foster your brother and sister. He wishes to make an alliance of our houses. His son is young, still, but - ”_

_“Dís is a_ child. _What of her choice?”_

Suppressing a shudder at the memory, Thorin regarded Nori warily and replied, “I have no stomach for it.”

“Would that all your kin was so noble,” Nori acknowledged with an ironic inclination of his head. “For Dáin’s people are downright Mannish. There’s talk all over that he’s come to steal your sister away and I’ve heard tell of the plot from the horse’s mouth.”

Thorin’s first instinct was to toss him out on his ear for making up such vicious lies. He could not lay hands on his father, but Nori was a different matter. It was impossible, he told himself as his fingertips felt numb and a dreadful pounding of blood resounded in his ears. _Impossible._

“How?” Thorin aske with a badly concealed sneer. “Did you settle in for drinks with Dáin? Make yourself a guest of his court?”

“Not far off,” Nori shot back, giving Thorin a look that communicated clearly that he did not find his king nearly as clever as he thought he was. “Borr, son of Nar? Gets awfully chatty when he thinks he’s found a chum. He’s one of them geniuses reckons he’s so bright you can’t get anything over on him, worst kind of fool there is.”

 _No,_ Thorin thought resolutely. _It cannot be. Must not be._ “And what did this fool of fools tell you, exactly?”

Nori told all. How the young dwarf made it clear that his father’s intention was to bring the houses of Erebor and the Iron Hills together, that it had been a goal of Dáin’s father stretching back almost fifty years. That was known to him, at least, but he thought - he _hoped_ \- the notion died with him. Not so, the fire seemed out, but only slept beneath the cinders. The memories floated, one by one, unbidden, to the top of Thorin’s mind.

He had been so _young._ Before settling in the Ered Luin, before his mother died, before Azanulbizar when he lost nearly everything he loved. Despite the safety and finery they were surrounded with, that awful day in the Iron Hills when he thought his father might take his sister and brother away from him was the hardest Thorin had endured. 

_”You are her_ father! _These are not a father’s words - ”_

_“I am thinking like a king!”_

And so he had been. So Thorin could _not_ , even so many years later, he could not. How old was his father when he made that terrible pronouncement? Not so much older than Thorin was now, yet the thought of his sister sent away from him and married off - if one could call such an arrangement as that a marriage. Perhaps Thorin was no true king, the thought still sickened him. 

“And there’s more,” Nori added, leaning his head in, his voice carrying with it all the hushed tones of conspiracy. “Talk about _you_ and the boys.”

Thorin saw red, it took all his not inconsiderable will to clench his fists by his sides so as not to grasp Nori and shake the wits right out of his head. “What talk?” Thorin growled out. 

“That - and don’t shoot the messenger, mind,” Nori raised both hands and unconsciously took one step back toward Dwalin, in hopes that Thorin wouldn’t lunge at him if it meant taking his dearest friend out in the attack. Dwalin did not move either closer to him or farther away, he was as still and silent as stone. “That Fíli and Kíli aren’t proper heirs, the question of lineage.”

“What question of lineage?” Thorin roared, forgetting his earlier request that voices be kept to a dull roar so as to avoid waking the household. “There is _none_ , and curse Dáin for a half-wit if he doesn’t realize it - curse him for a _traitor_ if he does!”

“Don’t need to tell me,” Nori’s hands rose ever higher, ready to ward of a blow, if necessary. “Just the messenger, remember? But there’s always grumblings, and Dís married beneath her, it’s not like Víli’s family...well, he couldn’t _read,_ could he? It’s not like they kept their family tree framed over the mantle, for Durin’s sake! You’ve got to expect some grousing - ”

“Víli doesn’t _matter!_ ” Thorin slammed his fist down upon the kitchen table so hard that the wood cracked with the force of the blow. “They’re _my_ heirs, my _sons,_ she is _my_ sister and if those Iron Hills bastards think they can take her from me - ”

“They are no one’s sons but mine and you’d do well to remember _that,_ King Under the Mountain.”

Dís stood in the doorway of her bedchamber, face illuminated by the light of a wavering candle. She looked fierce. She looked _furious._

“I - ” Thorin began, but faltered. “I thought you were asleep.”

“I’m not,” she replied shortly. Dís walked toward them stiffly and put her candle down on the cracked tabletop. The sound was like a lightning strike in the silence of the room. She was pale and dark circles had drawn themselves under her eyes; if she had slept, it had not been a long sleep or a deep one. “How _dare_ you?” 

“How dare I what?” Thorin asked, incredulous for when he spoke, he assumed he and Dís spoke with one mind and one tongue. Nothing would ever make him think that she would agree to this mad, cruel scheme. He fought for her when she was a dwarfling and he would wage the same war now - and this was a battle in which he was certain they were on the same side. “You don’t think that I would let him - ”

“You would let him, he would take me,” she parroted back at Thorin, eyes blazing dangerously. “What am I, then? Some boon to be passed between you two? Given and taken, hoarded and sold? You forget yourself, brother, you forget _me_. I’m not a child, I can speak and think for myself and I won’t have you three in here rambling on about who’s to _have_ as though I’m something to be _taken.”_

“Told you we ought to have woken her up,” Nori mumbled, but jumped back when Dís rounded on him and shoved him toward the door.

“Nori, get out!” she shouted and he did not waste a moment in heeding her. Nori was a shrewd dwarf; he knew when to cut his losses and run. 

Thorin could not believe his ears. “What does it matter what we discuss, whether you’re here or not?” he demanded, he did not even wait until Nori was out the door before he spoke, which only made the thief pick up his pace as he fled the scene. “You can’t - you _won’t_ marry him.”

“Won’t I?” she asked, appalled. “Is that an order? A command from my king? Am I compelled to obey.”

“You wouldn’t.” Dwalin spoke for the first time since Nori relayed his horrible news. He was not stone now, his fists were clenched, but his voice was hoarse and his mouth hung open in disbelieving horror. “You _wouldn’t_.”

“And you!” Dís exclaimed. Her tone was different now, angry still, but beneath her wrath, there was something else, something that ran deeper: hurt and betrayal. “Sticking _your_ nose in it as well! What business is it of yours? _Any_ of you?”

“It’s my business as you’re my sister and your sons are my heirs!” Thorin countered before Dwalin could speak another word. “Did you _hear_ of his plan? Arranging a marriage like a trade agreement, it’s unconscionable!”

His heart was racing now, it seemed he had been thrust into a nightmare, one from which he desperately wanted to wake. Because Dís could not be thinking of leaving him. And leave him she would, if it was Dáin she wed. What would he be in the Iron Hills? An impoverished king living on his cousin’s charity. Here, he could at least have something he called his own, even if it was three rooms and a small smithy, it was _his_. No, it was _theirs_ , some little corner of the world that was _theirs_ at long last. After all they had endured together, she would think to leave him?

“You object to my being forced into a marriage, but you haven’t any objection to forbidding one!” Dís shouted back. “Looks like two sides of the same coin to me!”

“Did you hear what Nori said?” Thorin asked. “Were you _listening?_ Nar and his son are conspiring to give the line of Durin a _proper heir_. What do you suppose they want to do with Fíli and Kíli? Leave them here in the Ered Luin, like as not! They’re _nothing_ to them, nothing at all, Broadbeam whelps, you heard them, Dís!”

“I did!” Her face was growing red, her mouth twisting as if she was going to give way to tears, but Dís had not let her brother see her cry since Frerin died and their father abandoned them. She would not give him the satisfaction that night. “I heard every word, I know what they say of me, that I married a lowly miner and didn’t do right by my people. That my sons are low-born, unworthy, that I shamed you and the whole line! I’ve known the scorn of every gossipmonger in this village for nigh on thirty years! But I stoppered my tongue and stayed my fists for _you_ , so I’d not bring any more shame on your head!”

That was a blow as solid as if Dís cracked him across the jaw. All her life, Thorin tried to be her protector, to shield her from the worst of deprivation, from fear, from hunger. All her life, even now, he had failed her. 

“You think your marriage shamed me,” he repeated what he thought he’d heard her say. “You think your _children_ shame me and so you’ll run off to the Iron Hills to start over, a proper marriage to a proper lord? As if...as if none this ever happened? As if our lives here don’t matter?”

“I _never_ said that,” she shoved Thorin so hard, he fell back against Dwalin who only brought his arms up belatedly to steady him. There was no strength in them, he might have been held up by strings of silk. “Never! I never said I would, only that you have no right to make my choices for me. _Either_ of you.” 

Dís stared between the two of them her face twisted in an expression of deepest disgust. “I can’t stand the sight of you,” she spat hatefully, striding toward the doorway as fast as her legs could take her.

“Where are you going?” Thorin went after her, barely getting his fingers around her wrist before she wrenched her arm out of his grip.

“Out,” she glowered. “Or can’t I do that anymore? What would you do, keep me under lock and key like some jewel in a treasure house?”

Would that he could. Would that he could shut all those he loved away behind stone and locks and bolts that no one could break and shield them all from heartbreak. As it was, he could not even guard himself from that affliction. “Go then,” he turned away, arms crossed over his chest; it was the only position he would take that would not allow him to reach for her and cling to her like some...like some gold-mad dwarf with a diamond in his fist.

The door slammed. The upstairs neighbors, not for the first time in their residency in the Blue Mountains, pounded on the floor to make them quiet down. Thorin raised his eyes to look at Dwalin, but they both looked away, angry and ashamed. 

“I’ll go,” Dwalin said shortly. When he made to pass Thorin, he stopped, not quite meeting his gaze as he added, “I...I never meant for - ”

“I know,” Thorin rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose against the headache building up at the base of his skull. “I know. None of us did.”

Dwalin plodded toward the door and Thorin dragged himself to the room where his nephews were meant to be sleeping. The racket, he knew, would have woken Kíli, at least and he was a trial to get back to sleep when he woke in the night.

Dwalin did not manage to make it down the corridor before he stopped at a muffled cry and the sound of running feet. Thorin practically leapt at him, fingers clawing into Dwalin’s arm, naked panic in his eyes. “Fíli and Kíli,” he choked out. “They’re gone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay guys, it's time: dun, dun, DUN! And on that cliffhanger, I leave you until the next update.


	15. Chapter 15

The heirs of Thorin Oakenshield, though different in appearance, were so alike in age and demeanor that many in the Ered Luin jokingly referred to them as ‘the twins.’ Similar though they were, they shared some marked differences. Sleeping, for instance. Kíli was always up with the sun, wide awake and ready to begin his day before anyone else in the household felt the desire to rise from bed. Fíli preferred to sleep as late as he could and once he was out of bed, many was the morning he nodded off over his breakfast, dipping the ends of his braids in porridge and requiring a quick scrub before he went to Mister Balin’s for lessons.

Contributing to their vastly different sleep schedules was the matter of how quickly each lad fell asleep at night. Kíli always nodded off almost the moment that his head hit the pillow; Fíli took rather longer, not in the least because Kíli was always twitching and rolling over and kicking him. In retaliation, Fíli stole all the blankets off his brother and huddled in them, cocooned against flailing limbs.

He was on the verge of finally falling asleep when he heard the sound of his uncle talking to someone whose low tones he recognized as belonging to Mister Dwalin. When a third voice chimed in that he did not immediately recognize, he poked his head out of his makeshift bedroll and strained his ears to listen. Mam was already in bed, it was too late for company and anyway, when they had company, the company always wanted to see Kíli and himself.

The talk was so quiet he did not hear much, the rise and fall of voices so steady and soft that he was almost lulled to sleep, but he twitched and jumped when Uncle Thorin suddenly shouted about traitors. 

Fíli was scared and nearly jumped out of bed to wake his mother; she could almost always cheer their uncle up when he was in a temper, but when he looked over and saw her in the darkness, Mam had flung the bedclothes aside and was making her way to the door. Fíli flinched again when he heard the sound of a fist banging on something, followed by the sharp crack of splintering wood. _It’ll be alright,_ he thought, clutching his worn stuffed wolf that went to bed with him every night close to his chest. He was past the days when he thought it was a real wolf pup, but now he rubbed the soft cloth that sufficed for fur against his teeth and he took one of the pup’s floppy tears between his teeth and nibbled on it softly. _Mam’ll mend it, she will, she’ll -_

“VILI DOESN’T MATTER!” Uncle Thorin shouted, loud as thunder, so loud that Kíli stirred beside him and burrowed his head under his pillow, still half asleep. 

Fíli’s heart was pounding like a rabbit’s, quick and fast in his chest and he hugged his wolf tighter. Víli was his father, his father he couldn’t really remember, but whom he and Kíli were named for. Just yesterday Mister Dwalin told him that fathers were important in tracing back where they’d come from; why should Uncle Thorin now say he did not matter?

Fíli wanted to follow his brother’s example, burrow under a pillow and shut out all the sound, but Uncle Thorin was too loud and Mam hadn’t closed the door all the way when she left them so he heard far more than he wanted to and even before Mam kicked the third dwarf out of the house, he was fighting back tears and shaking Kíli on the shoulder to wake him up.

“ _Stop_ , Fíli,” he grumbled, reaching out for the quilt to pull it and finding nothing. “Where’s the covers gone?” 

“YOU WOULD LET HIM, HE WOULD TAKE ME!”

Kíli stopped squirming and sat up, inching closer to his brother. “Where’s Mam going?” he whispered, tugging on the blankets Fíli still had wrapped around him, trying to join him. Fíli, meanwhile, was untangling himself from the sheets, but he reached out and took his brother’s hand, to calm him.

Together they made their way to the edge of the bed, tiptoeing on silent feet to the doorway. Mam, Uncle Thorin and Mister Dwalin were all standing in the kitchen, _screaming_ at each other. It hurt Fíli’s ears, but not as much as their words hurt Fíli’s heart. 

Mam was going away. With cousin Dáin and leave them here. Kíli whimpered and clutched his brother’s hand, but tried to pull Fíli into the kitchen, one hand reaching unseen toward his mother. He flinched back and came flush up against his brother’s side when

“THEY’RE **NOTHING** TO THEM, NOTHING AT ALL! BROADBEAM WHELPS, YOU HEARD THEM, DIS!”

Fíli’s face screwed up too and hot tears stung at his eye and he sniffled so hard his nose hurt as he tried to keep from crying. It was obvious to him what was happening; his mother and uncle were going away with their cousin and they were going to leave Fíli and Kíli all alone. Mister Dwalin would go too, he was sure, he went wherever Uncle Thorin did.

Breath hitching, Fíli felt sick right down to his stomach. It did not make sense. His mother and his uncle loved him, loved them, would never ever leave them - or at least he thought they wouldn’t. Maybe they were shamed because he and Kíli and the other children caused trouble and made their normally smiling cousin look so angry. Maybe they really were more Broadbeam than Longbeard and because of the rules Mister Dwalin was telling him about, they couldn’t stay with them anymore.

Who would take care of them? They were too little to work in the forge, then they would not be able to keep their flat and then they would be on the street since their whole family would be gone away. 

Well...not their _whole_ family. “Come on,” Fíli said, tugging Kíli away from the door. “Come with me.”

Kíli looked back over his shoulder to the door, then back at his brother with teary eyes. “Where’s we going?” he asked. “I don’t want to go!”

“Shh,” Fíli hushed him again, dragging him to the window by their bed. Mam had a stool set up just under the window so Kíli could look out and see where the sun was in the sky before he woke them up in the morning. Standing on his toes, Fíli was just tall enough to open the shutters and he did now, stepping down and urging Kíli up on the stool. “Go on, I’ll boost you.”

“Where’s we _going?”_ Kíli demanded, nevertheless obeying his brother and standing on the stool. 

“Mister Bofur’s house,” Fíli replied impatiently, taking hold of the bottom of his brother’s bare foot and practically throwing him over the windowsill onto the ground below. He heard his brother’s cry of dismay as he landed hard on the ground, but Fíli ignored him, using both arms to lift himself onto the ledge on his stomach, wiggling far enough that he could flip over onto the grass. It was further down than he thought and Fíli landed hard on his bottom. Kíli was fussing with his knee; in the darkness, Fíli saw something dark seeping through the knee of his loose sleeping trousers.

Kíli was crying harder now, reaching up to the window, moaning, “I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go! I want Mam! I want _MAM!”_

“You can’t have her, shush now!” Fíli helped him get to his feet, but Kíli favored his right leg, clutching at his knee and howling. “We neither of us can have her, she’s going away! Her and Uncle Thorin and everyone and they isn’t taking neither of us with ‘em! You heard ‘em!”

“Don’t care!” Kíli whinged, long and drawn out. “I won’t let ‘em leave, I’ll tie ‘em to their beds or stick ‘em on the floor with pitch!”  
“And then Dáin’s guards’ll get you good,” Fíli insisted. “Dungeons and cells and you won’t see nobody as loves you again!”

That notion seemed to startle Kíli into silence, through he still breathed hard and his whole face was red and sticky from crying. “I can’t-can’t walk,” he whispered. “Me leg hurts.”

“I’ll carry you,” Fíli said. It wasn’t so far a walk as all that and it was important to him that he and his brother get away before their mother and uncle had to throw them out or leave them behind. Kíli hopped up and fixed his arms tight around Fíli’s back. Fíli almost toppled over; Kíli was smaller than him, but only just. 

“Wait!” Kíli insisted as Fíli steadied them both. “We got to go back, I forgot me ram! I forgot him, he’ll get lonesome if he don’t got me!”

“We’ll get him later,” Fíli promised, though he did not think they would be back. The streets were dark, it was colder than he thought and the ground felt freezing against his bare toes, so he started walking quickly to warm them up, occasionally ducking into doorways and alleys when someone happened by. The high street looked queer and it was long past time for him to be in bed, he did not want to be caught and brought home...or caught and not brought home. 

There wasn’t room at Mister Bombur and Missus Thyra’s, they had enough dwarflings underfoot without two more. Misters Bofur and Bifur liked children and hadn’t any living under their roof and since they weren’t of Durin’s line they wouldn’t be leaving.

Kíli was still crying softly into his brother’s hair and Fíli had to pause to lift him up on his back since he was slipping down. “Why don’t they want us, no more?” he whispered in Fíli’s ear. 

“‘Cos we isn’t all-Longbeard,” Fíli replied, feeling a little choked up himself. “We’s part-Broadbeam and that’s no good for...for Mam and Uncle Thorin. Remember how we got in trouble ‘cos of the ponies? If was wasn’t a bit Broadbeam, there wouldn’t have been no trouble and - and they would have got to stay with us.”

“But who says?” Kíli asked, dismayed. “No one can tell Uncle Thorin to do nothing! He’s a king!”

“Dáin can, I s’pose.” That answered Cat’s question, now Fíli knew the difference between a king and a lord. A lord could order a king around and the king couldn’t do anything about it. “Hush up, we’re there, nearly.”

At least, Fíli thought so. It was hard to tell, nothing looked as it ought to. All the shops were shuttered and closed and only a few candles burned in the windows of the apartments around them. Being small had its advantages sometimes, there were few people about on the streets and none of them paid any mind to two little dwarrows in their night things. 

Fíli could not feel his arms by the time they finally reached the door of the flat Mister Bofur shared with his cousin. The knock he made upon the door was very feeble indeed once he slid Kíli down to sit on the ground since his leg hurt too much to stand on. The door knocker was too high over his head to reach and Kíli was hurt and could not stand upon his shoulders. Unable to hold them in any more, Fíli began to cry in earnest, sinking down to sit with his brother on the ground. Kíli took his hand again shifting closer to him and laying his head on his shoulder, exhausted. 

Fíli wanted to sleep too, he was so upset and so tired that they might have lain there until morning had Bifur’s ears, war sharpened, not picked up on the sound of their weeping through the stone.

The door of the flat opened and Bifur immediately knelt down before them, the candle he’d held placed on the ground beside them as he started at them, wide-eyed. “Bofur, **here!** ” he shouted over his shoulder in Khudzul. Fíli and Kíli had their fill of shouting and huddled together, tears sliding down their cheeks piteously. Much more softly he spoke to them, **“Why have you come here, my boys? Where is your mother?”**

“They don’t want us no more,” Kíli explained, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “Mam and Uncle. They got to give us up. Can we live along of you?”

Bifur looked bewildered, from Kíli to Fíli as Bofur ran up behind him and dropped down before the boys as well. His hair was unbound and falling around his shoulders, he pushed it out of his face and said, “Here now, what’s all this? Late for visiting, eh?”

“We isn’t visiting,” Fíli gulped and Mister Bofur picked him right up off his feet, carrying him inside as Mister Bifur did the same to Kíli. “We got to find somewheres else to live ‘cos Mam and Uncle Thorin’re going off to the Iron Hills ‘cos Lord Dáin says they got to.”

“I hurt my knee,” Kíli spoke into the shocked silence that followed Fíli’s pronouncement. “Can you fix it, Mister Bifur?”

“ **I surely shall,** ” he sat Kíli down in his own armchair by the fire and ran a hand over his dark hair. “ **Remain where you are, I shall return presently.** ”

Bofur stared after him as his cousin disappeared into the bedroom. He knew he was fetching bandages, but he felt as if he had been abandoned, thrown headfirst into a situation he was utterly unprepared to deal with adequately. _This_ was precisely the reason why Bofur had no children of his own. His status as uncle and almost-uncle to his kith and kin’s wee ones suited him perfectly well. He could earn their eternal adoration by making them toys and aiding them in their hijinks and leave their parents to tidy up afterward. 

That was his first thought his second was that, _Dís must be beside herself_. There was never a question of whether or not Fíli was speaking the truth; though he was clearly in a panic over the absurd notion that his mother and uncle would ever give him up, Bofur knew instantly that it wasn’t true. Neither Dís nor Thorin would ever leave those boys behind.

His third, least charitable thought that he dismissed almost as soon as it popped into his head was that if Víli was still alive, this wouldn’t have happened. Fíli and Kíli would have never had cause to doubt their father’s devotion. 

“Listen here, lad,” Bofur said, catching Fíli’s bright blue eyes in his darker gaze. “I don’t know what’s got you thinking that, but there’s not a drop o’truth in the lot of it.”

“There _is_ ,” he protested, tears trailing down his face afresh, even as Bofur mopped them up with the sleeve of his tunic. “We can’t stay along of them ‘cos we got too much Broadbeam in us. Not proper heirs. Uncle _said.”_

“You’re plenty Longbeard for your uncle,” Bofur replied. “Broadbeam too, aye, and that’s an honor in itself, but you’re Thorin’s heirs too.”

“But…” Fili screwed his face up in frustration and seemed to be on the verge of tears. “We isn’t...don’t we got to be one or the other? I don’t understand.”

Bifur returned, medicines in hand and he knelt down beside Kíli once more, washing and binding the gash on his knee with gentle fingers. The youngest boy was slumped over in the chair fast asleep and once he was done cleaning his wound, Bifur repositioned him in a more comfortable position on the armchair, covering him up with a blanket from his own bed. 

Bofur sat down as well, scooping Fíli up onto his lap and pressing a kiss to his wavy blonde hair. “Can’t say as I do either,” he replied sympathetically. Fili hung his head and his shoulders hitched, but Bofur curled a finger under his chin and urged his head up. “But I’ll tell you what I do know t’be true. You’re Fili, son of Vili, husband of Dis. Heir of Thorin Oakenshield, brother of Kili - with the loudest scream in the Ered Luin.”

That almost made Fili smile; he did have an impressive scream.

“And here’s one more thing I know for a _certainty,”_ Bofur added. “No one, not no lord, not no king, not the Maker Himself could make your uncle or your Ma do a _thing_ they don’t got a mind to do. They’re the stubbornest, stiffest-necked dwarves I’ve ever known and they love you lads more’n anything else the world over. What’s that your Ma says? That she loves you more’n the...well, let’s see, what _does_ she say? The moon? The stars? A good mug o’stout?”

“More than the stars,” Fíli recited from memory. His mother kissed his face over and over, tickling him when she said it, making him squeal with laughter. “And the moon. And the jewels of the earth. And the snows of the mountains. And the light of the sun.”

“There now,” Bofur smiled and nodded, satisfied. “You see? Anyone with that much love in ‘em would never give it up no matter who said so. And I’d wager your Ma’s out right now looking for you, wondering where her two little jewels got to. She’ll come barreling through that door any minute. Any minute now.”

It was, precisely, ten minutes before Dís burst in without knocking; Bofur knew it was the right decision to leave the door unlocked, if she encountered any impediment she would have probably smashed right through it.

Before she could say a word, Bofur took hold of her wrist and pulled her to the two armchairs by the fire. They were facing each other and, being large enough for a pair of grown dwarves to have a comfortable sit, were more than adequate to hold two sleeping dwarflings, small enough to share one blanket. 

Her other hand covered her mouth and Dís made a sound that might have been a sob, but for the relief that poured off her in waves. “Safe as houses,” Bofur said, rubbing her arm reassuringly. “Little mites come right here, didn’t meet with no trouble on the streets. Just worn out, is all.”

“I’m a terrible mother,” Dís whispered, her eyes wide with remembered panic. 

“ **You are not**.” And Bofur blessed his cousin in his mind. Bifur was leaps and bounds better at giving comfort than he had been, though he agreed with his cousin on that point. Any mother could lose track of her children, he and Bombur led their own Ma on many a merry chase through the markets. When Víli was with them that just meant there were two dwarrowdams hot on their trails. “ **There is no accounting for the whims of children. Do not abuse yourself so.**.”

She hardly seemed to hear him and only shook her head, lips pressed together against tears. 

“It’s all my fault,” Dís said softly, crossing to her sons, hands hovering just over their shoulders, hesitant to wake them for fear that they would give her a just dressing-down and confirm her fears about her own inadequacy to her face. 

“Where’s Thorin?” Bofur asked, thinking if there was blame to go around, her brother surely shared at least half of it; the lads had said that both their mother and uncle were planning on giving them up.

“With Dwalin,” she replied shortly. “Outside, I told them to wait, I - shh, love, back to sleep, back to sleep.”

Kíli was rubbing his eyes, stretching his hands out and reaching for her as he yawned, “Ma, I _told_ , Fee, I _told_ him, he don’t listen. I want to go home, I don’t really want to live along of Mister Bofur and Mister Bifur, not forever.” 

His mother picked him up easily and his head went to lay upon her shoulder. Dís rocked him and kissed his hair, muttering under her breath that she was _so sorry_ and they were _going home now_ and _it’s alright, it’s alright._

An insatiably curious part of him wanted to know just what it was all about, why the boys were so sure their devoted mother would leave them at the word of their noble cousin, but Bifur caught his eye and shook his head severely. Bifur was smart about people and he read the question in Bofur’s eyes before his cousin gave voice to the thought. The younger dwarf swallowed the words and twisted his hands behind his back with a small frown, though he knew his cousin’s instincts were right. Now was not the time to ask such questions. 

Thorin ducked his head in the room then and such relief flooded his features when he saw Kíli in his sister’s arms that Bofur hardly recognized him. “I knew you wouldn’t tarry so long if they weren’t here,” he said to her, but Dís did not look up or acknowledge him, she just held her youngest son all the tighter. 

Fíli was still asleep, or pretending to be, as Thorin lifted him out of the chair and into his own arms. Bofur leaned toward the latter when he saw the little lad’s arms go tight around his uncle’s neck, as though he hadn’t any intention of ever letting go. “Thank you,” Thorin said gratefully, looking between Bofur and Bifur. “From the bottom of my heart.”

Bifur made the sign for _it is nothing_ , but of course it wasn’t nothing. There was simply no reason to thank them; that was what family did, after all. 

“Anytime,” Bofur said, only realizing how foolish the statement was after he had already said it. “I mean, we’re happy to have them. Er. They’re no trouble.”

Oddly, Dís did not say another word. Usually she was the one who minded her manners while Thorin was the silent surly one, but now she rose with Kíli snug against her and walked to the door with quick strides; it was only then that Bofur noticed her feet were as bare as her sons’. 

Thorin looked after her and sighed, a troubled sigh from deep in his bones. He bade Bifur and Bofur goodnight and followed his sister out the door. Bifur watched him go and crossed the room to fasten the lock securely that time.

“What do you suppose that was all about?” Bofur asked, scratching his head.

Once he was satisfied that the door was truly locked, Bifur turned back and folded his arms over his chest, giving Bofur a look that would brook no argument. “ **I cannot say** ,” he said meaningfully. “ **Nor can you. And you best not; it is not our tale to tell.** ”

With that, he gathered his blanket from the chairs and made his way to his room, shutting the door behind him, a clear indication that the matter was closed. Bofur remained for just a minute more, pushing the chairs back to their usual places before the fire, his with the back to the door and windows, Bifur’s against the far wall, so he could see the entirety of the room from his seat. 

It all came out alright, he reflected. And so there was not much more to say about it, but he could not quash the little niggle of worry at the back of his head. Fíli seemed so sure his cousin meant to leave with his mother and uncle. That they would leave the lads behind was impossible, he was still convinced of that. What he was less sure of was, if Lord Dáin did invite them back to his shining city in the East, whether they could resist the temptation and remain behind.

His sister-in-law’s words of only a week prior came back. He dismissed Thyra at the time as being flustered, embarrassed, speaking without thinking. The fact remained that Dís and Thorin were royalty, born and raised. He never desired more than he had, their life in the Blue Mountains was a good fit for him, slow, quiet, ordinary. But they were extraordinary, by design. Was it so strange that they might hope for more and jump at the chance, when it was given?

He’d lived more years without Dís and Thorin, the boys, the rest of their Erebor-born kinfolk and subjects. When they’d first come, he heard his neighbors whisper that they hoped their settlement would be of short duration, but they stayed and stayed. Now he couldn’t imagine his home without them - couldn’t imagine how it could _be_ a home, without them.

It was an uneasy night that Bofur passed in his room. He lost many he loved through accident and war. It would be awful to lose yet more through choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The boys are found! But all is still not well in the Durin family - it seems some of that Longbeard moroseness is indeed catching...


	16. Chapter 16

Thorin had not slept the night before, not really. Every time he drifted off into that murky place between awake and asleep, he saw his nephews’ bed, empty. Nothing had happened, he reminded himself as he jolted himself awake, heart pounding. _Nothing_ had happened. But the thought that it all could have ended so terribly prevented him from falling into restful slumber.

More than once he woke and crept the short distance through the kitchen to Dís’s bedroom door. It was shut against him and he did not try the handle though it would have eased his mind greatly to see them all abed, sleeping in safety. Dís had taken Fíli from his arms without a word the night before and put the boys to sleep in her own bed. He had little doubt she intended to crawl in after him, but she shut the door in his face as he stood upon the threshold.

Thorin’s room, formerly occupied by his mother, had no windows, but he saw the light beneath the crack between the door and the floor that told him it was past time to rise. For a long minute he did not move, only closed his eyes against the day and wished he could remain where he was. This was not the bone-weariness that came with his darkest moods; he _could_ get up, he simply did not want to.

Like one still sleeping he rose slowly, methodically, and dressed for the day. His chest felt oddly sore, as though he had been running a great distance and developed a stitch in his side. Heartache, he knew the feeling was called, but he never expected to feel it so literally. Trying not to think about the events of the night before, but unable to turn his mind from them, Thorin could not say what frightened him more: the sight of his nephews’ empty bed or the notion that his sister might mean to depart from him.

Dís had taken to life in the Ered Luin better than he had, to their mother’s dismay. Freya found her daughter’s interest in the homely little village almost a betrayal and her low-born friends a mockery of their own family’s fall. Thorin always yearned for Erebor, but it just that, a yearning. Somewhere, deep in the core of his being, he thought he would look upon his home again. His mother, grief-stricken, knew she never would. As for Dís...he never asked her, but Thorin feared that she did not care very much either way.

But perhaps he and his mother were wrong. Perhaps she was tired of toiling among commoners for her daily bread. She had every right to expect more from her life. Thorin had been unable to provide the life she had been born to, there was no question that Dáin would.  
  
Dressed in his second-best coat, hair still unbound, Thorin eased his door open and was surprised to find a place set for him at the table. Six eggs, two thick slices of ham, but he was not optimistic that his sister was much better disposed toward him than she had been last night. At least three of the yolks were broken.

Dís was standing before the fire, scrambling eggs in the skillet, likely for Fíli and Kíli, but they were nowhere to be seen.

“Thank you,” Thorin said when he sat down to eat and Dís made some small hum of acknowledgment over the fire, but did not turn to look at him. Her hair had come half unbraided from sleep and she still wore her night things. “Why aren’t you dressed?”

She looked up sharply from the skillet, but there was no note of chastisement in Thorin’s voice, he only sounded tired. “I’m not coming,” Dís said, not quite meeting her brother’s eyes as she gave the runny eggs a poke with the spoon. Her voice was flat and the words evenly spaced as she talked, it was clear that whatever she was about to say, she had rehearsed. “There are chores to be done. It promises to be a warm day, I wanted to get an early start on the wash.”

Thorin paused with a bite of egg halfway to his mouth. Doing the wash was Dís’s most hated chore, many was the day he woke and had to dress in yesterday’s tunic because she had stolen his to wear to put the task off one day more. The week prior to the arrival of the party from the Iron Hills she gleefully informed him that she saved money enough to hire a laundress for the month. One less thing to think about, she said, but Thorin knew his sister well and knew that she was only taking the trade talks as an excuse to avoid washday as long as possible.

“I thought you were going to hire the washing out,” he said and resumed his breakfast.

Dís shook her head. “Too dear,” she replied. “It’s a luxury we can’t afford, not when I can do it just as easily myself.”

She turned and their eyes met for one nervous second before Dís resumed stirring the eggs. Thorin finished his meal and scrapped the legs of his chair on the floor. It was the only sound in the room as he began braiding his hair.

The quiet proved too much for his sister. “Tell them whatever you’d like when you make my excuses,” she said, portioning out eggs and toast for the boys. “I’m sure I won’t be missed.”

“That remains to be seen,” Thorin said, looking up from fixing a clasp to the end of a braid. “We had enough for a laundress last week.”

Dís shook her head and set her sons’ plates down, resolutely not looking at him as she padded barefoot across the kitchen floor to where Fíli and Kíli still lay abed. “It’s little matter. You don’t need me.”

“I do,” Thorin surprised them both, speaking aloud as she made to rouse the boys from slumber. Despite herself, Dís turned around and looked at him, wavering on the threshold. She caught her the skin of her lower lip between her teeth and worried it slightly in an age-old gesture of anxiety. “Of course I do.”

A knock on the door sent Dís fleeing into the bedroom and Thorin scrubbing a hand over his face. Distantly, he noted that he should take a pair of scissors to his beard that night. It would be appropriate, another grief to compile upon those that daily bore down upon his mind.

Balin was on the other side of the door and, judging by the dark circles under his eyes, he had not slept much the previous night either. Ever tactful, Balin did not mention Thorin’s own rumpled appearance, just craned his neck to peer over his shoulder and inquired, “Is Dís not coming?”

“No,” Thorin replied shortly, shutting the door tightly behind him. “She’s...doing the wash.”

He was not a liar, by nature, he had no talent for it, but as the words tripped haltingly off his tongue he thought he might do well to heed his sisters advice and invent a better excuse for her absence. Already she had given him an excellent piece of advice and the morning was scarcely begun.

Balin did not need lies, his mind was keen enough to divine the deeper truth beneath Thorin’s words. “Ah,” he nodded in exhausted understanding. “It’s that sort of week. Dwalin isn’t speaking to me either.”

Yesterday Thorin sensed something was amiss between the brothers, but Dwalin was silent as stone when he tried to press the issue. Now he hadn’t the energy to take on his cousins’ spats in addition to the anger that still thickened the air between himself and Dís.

Thorin burned with the feeling of it. His guts twisted and his jaw clenched as he and Balin made their way to the interior of the mountain in silence. He tried to quell the sensation, but though the idea of his sister leaving panicked him and grieved him, there was anger too, simmering just beneath his skin.

 _How dare she?_ a cruel voice snarled in the back of his mind. After all he had lost, how dare she _take_ that which was most precious to him? Herself and his nephews were his dearest possessions in all the world, worth more than every vein of mithril lost to them in Moria - but then, they weren’t possessions, were they? Not _things_ to be owned and kept, but mortal creatures with minds of their own and hearts of their own and feet that could travel far, far away from him. Leaving him bereft.

 _It isn’t fair!_ he wanted to rage, wanted to howl until the stone around them tremored with the force of his anger and his sorrow and buried every last one of them in its final cold, hard embrace.

“Good morrow!” Dáin’s handsome face and charming smile appeared before his narrowed eyes and Thorin fought with everything he had to stay his hands, idle these many days. How he longed for the forge. If he beat his rage out against steel, he would feel less compelled to beat his rage out against Dain’s brow. “And where is my lady cousin this fine day?”

Thorin bit down on his tongue so hard he felt the cooper tang of blood in his mouth; he swallowed the bitter mouthful down hard. Dáin seemed to realize he’d touched a nerve, however unintended and backed a half-step away from Thorin, looking concerned. “I hope all is well,” he continued, eyes darting to Balin.

“Well enough,” he nodded, his expression pleasant enough for all it lacked a smile. “She is seeing to her sons today, they require some additional looking-after.”

“Oh,” Dáin replied, accepting that explanation easily and without question. “They must miss her, being away from them so many days together. It does her credit, to be such a devoted mother.”

It was an innocuous comment, the sort of dry pleasantry one uttered among unfamiliar company. Safe statements, meant to procure friendship and goodwill. All Thorin heard was an assessment of his sister as a potential wife, a good mother for a good lord of a distant country.

“Save your idle flattery for one whose head will be turned by it,” he snarled rudely and pushed past Dáin to take his customary seat at the table, accorded a place of honor because of his rank and ignored roundly because of his circumstances. No one else spoke a word to him, everything, from the set of his brow to his arms folded across his chest, shielding his heart, repelled company.

Balin sat beside him and Dáin only took the empty seat on Thorin’s right at the very last minute, eyeing his cousin nervously. A voice in Thorin’s head that sounded alarmingly like his father hissed that his discourtesy would do him no favors among the foreign lords and the Iron Hills were their greatest, nearest ally in the East, kin or no. Thorin ignored it; whatever happened, he would not be going East.

If his nerves were less frayed, it might have been the best day of the talks by far. The morning was spent discussing tariffs and tolls along the most commonly taken routes between the Kingdoms. On that subject, Thorin found himself an authority; he knew exactly how far a family of little means could expect to travel to sell their goods abroad. It was a queer thing, to have all eyes upon him, to be the subject of keen attention and solemn agreement.

 _This_ was what he had been born for. To be heard. To be heeded. Always, since his father disappeared his authority had been in question and Thorin had no stronger critic than himself. He was no true king, was he? Not if there was a chance his father lived. Not if he was far from his homeland, living among foreigners. Not while his kingdom was the nesting ground for the greatest calamity of the Age.

Now, at this long table in halls of carven stone with the greatest assemblage of his race, Thorin had his taste of the power he was always meant to wield. And he was too heartsick to enjoy a moment of it.

As was usual, they broke for a meal around noontime. Thorin’s eyes sought Balin first who discreetly squeezed his forearm in an unspoken acknowledgment that he had done well. Second, he looked for Dwalin, almost desperately. He had seen nothing of his friend since he left Bifur and Bofur’s home, Fíli in his arms. Once he saw the boys were safe, he left without saying a word. Thorin thought he had returned to his rooms, but the weariness that infused every line of Balin’s frame made him revise that assumption.

Thorin only got a glimpse of his cousin’s massive frame disappearing out a side door before Dáin’s fingers were plucking his sleeve and his earnest face was peering up at him once again. Gritting his teeth, Thorin rose from his seat and wandered off, away from the dining halls, down a side corridor that would spill him out near the entrance where he might stand some chance of catching Dwalin, but Dáin, like a faithful hound, followed along at his heels.

 _Go,_ he thought so hard he was surprised the word did not etch itself across his forehead, burned onto his skin by the force of his rage. _Leave me. I can’t stand the sight of you._

“You spoke well,” Dáin said and Thorin only grunted in acknowledgment. “Naturally you would. You’d know all about that, having traveled so much. Do you know, I didn’t pay a single toll all the way here? They were _paid_ , of course, but not by me, I didn’t know how much they were charging. It didn’t seem so important at the time, but now I’m kicking myself, I’ll have to keep an ear out on the return journey.”

Thorin lengthened his strides purposefully, but Dáin only jogged to keep pace with him. When they emerged, blinking somewhat stupidly in the afternoon sunlight, the streets were almost entirely deserted and Dwalin was nowhere to be seen. He was swifter on his feet than a dwarf that size had any right to be, Thorin scowled to himself. Through it all, Dáin hovered just over his shoulder, like a gnat or a fly that refused to be swatted down.

“That...that wasn’t just flattery,” Dáin offered after a flustered silence. “I genuinely believe you spoke well just now. Better than I could. You’ve seen so much of the world and what’s more, you’ve remembered it all. Put your knowledge to use. That’s an impressive thing, too many, I think, see a great deal and remember nothing at all.”

Thorin only stared at him. Dáin was speaking, the words were washing over him, but it was like his cousin spoke a foreign tongue, for he could not fathom the meaning behind them. There had to be one, surely. For Thorin had seen the world and knew that compliments were as gifts; once given, one always expected something in return. If Dáin thought Thorin would trade his sister’s hand for a few pretty phrases, he was even less acquainted with the world than he admitted.

“Would you rather be alone just now?” Dáin asked awkwardly, resting his hand on the back of his neck. “If I’m disturbing you, I apologize, it’s only that I haven’t _seen_ you in an age, I know I’ve seen you every day this week, but we haven’t exchanged words, not really. Erm. And not now, of course. I only...there are many things I wish to discuss with you. Advice, I’d like, if you would give it.”

Thorin’s last nerve snapped. “Advice?” he sneered. “What advice would a Lord beg of a common smith?”

Only then did Dáin look truly taken aback. His eyes were wide and his mouth dropped open; he looked his age again, so terribly young and so...so like Frerin might have been that Thorin found he could not look at him and squinted into the sun. The brightness hurt his eyes, but he stared until they started to tear.

“You demean yourself, why?” Dáin asked, bewildered. “I’ve never said such a thing. You...you are King Under the Mountain. We’re...alike, you and I.”

“Are we?” Thorin asked, mockingly. “You who doesn’t know how much it cost to bring your retinue across a continent? You, who craft only to honor our ancestors and our Maker? Do you know why I know the tolls on the Southern roads so well? I paid them, last autumn and the caravan cut its teeth on cram until our wares sold enough to buy better victuals.”

Dáin’s hands were raised, his lips parted about to beg Thorin’s pardon for the offense, but Thorin’s speech was like a boulder rolling down a hill. It was set moving by his anger and would not stop until it destroyed everything in its pathway.

“I do not carry with me wisdom from our exile that I mete out for the benefit of those lords,” he went on, his voice a low, harsh rumble. “If I allow myself to forget these things, then my people will starve and I with them. I am no king, I have no mountain, I have my hammer and my will and _nothing_ else, do you understand? You, the great hero who stood where my brother fell. _You_ the incinerator, _desecrator._ Do not imagine that we share _anything_ in common save blood!”

Thorin was shouting, his words rained down upon Dáin’s ears like stones and his noble cousin cowered, actually _cowered_ under the assault. It was too much; he had gone too far.

The pretense of it all was too much for him, at last. Thorin was right to take no joy in his hour authority. Dáin showed him, with his words and his horrible praise _exactly_ what it was the other lords listened to. Not the power of a king demanding justice for travelers from his peers, but one of the peasantry who’d come demanding leniency upon his empty pocketbook. He was a pretender. A jape. And he would be made a fool of no longer.

Without waiting for whatever hollow apology that would come dribbling from Dáin’s lips, Thorin turned and fled to the interior of the mountain and prayed that this time he would not be followed by that ghost of his own ambition. Dáin had all that was meant to be his: authority, a kingdom, a _home_. Soon he might add his sister and heirs to his vast treasury. What did it matter if he took the final shreds of Thorin’s dignity back to the Iron Hills with him too?

* * *

There was nothing Dís hated more than laundering clothes. Give her a rampaging herd of orcs to face down, she would do it more readily - _had_ done it, more cheerfully too - than she would trek down to the riverside with a few weeks’ worth of clothing to clean.

That morning, she would do the whole village’s washing for a year if it meant she never had to see anyone other than her sons ever again. There was a thought to take under consideration. She could hang up her hammer and build herself a cozy shack for three down by the river, become the village hermit and madwoman laundress; if Fíli and Kíli wouldn’t resent having a madwoman for a mother, she might do it.

The two were just as she left them, tucked into her own bed with the blanket pulled up over their noses. Kíli woke up just long enough to beg for his ram, which Dís retrieved for him from his bed and took Fíli’s wolf pup without needing to be asked. Her eldest did not wake entirely when she slipped the worn little scrap of wool and stuffing under his arm, but he held it close to his chest and, as always, one of its ears wound up between his lips. Dís got into bed between then and slept with her sons flush up against her sides, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling. She bit her lip and tried not to wake them with her choked sobs.

Safe and sound they had been, but she was not crying tears of relief. Dís had broken a promise to herself the night before and could not forgive herself for the breach, not yet. When she told Bofur she was a terrible mother, he did not know it, but she was not speaking of the fact that Fíli and Kíli had disappeared. All her memories from when she was her sons’ ages were tainted by the smell of smoke and the sounds of screams. The smoke was from Erebor, but the screaming did not originate from the dragon’s wrath, she had been held too tightly as she was carried out to hear anything but the thumping of her mother’s heart.

The screaming was from her mother too, and her father. They fought constantly with one another, so ferociously that Dís was often relieved when she woke in the morning and found both of them lying in their tent with their backs to one another, consciously not touching. When she married Víli she made him promise that they would not fight like that in front of their children, that their children would never have reason to fear that they might wake to find one of their parents gone.

Her words, so solemnly spoken, had startled him. _“Nah, they won’t fear that,”_ he said, tugging her close to him and kissing her hair. _“How could they? I’m too sweet-faced to stay sore at long, used to vex me Mam awfully.”_

She laughed and, as always when she was with him, the world outside seemed a little less terrible, the future less awful. She’d broken her promise, to herself and her husband and her sons suffered, worse than she had over her parents’ arguments. For Dís never believed for a moment that they would willingly abandon her, only that they might become so angry with one another that they might destroy each other.

Shaking their shoulders and kissing their brows to wake them, Dís wondered if Fíli and Kíli would pull away or look upon her warily. They did neither. Kíli’s dark eyes opened at once and he embraced her tight around the neck, kissing her cheek and asking to be carried to the kitchen since his knee was still aching. Fíli was more slow to rise, but when he did, he slid off the side of the bed and came to her side, fisting a hand in her loose sleeping tunic and leaning his head upon her hip.

“Where’s Uncle Thorin?” Fíli asked, looking around the kitchen.

“Back inside the mountain, to the meetings,” Dís replied, pushing the last of the strawberry jam toward him.

Fíli spread it upon his toast slowly. “Don’t you got to go with him?”

Dís shook her head, “Nah, I’m staying here today. There’s washing to be done, I can’t be troubled with boring old lords and their silly meetings all the time. I haven’t got to do anything I don’t want to do.”

Fíli smiled a little warily and took a bite of toast. A rapid tattoo of knocks upon the door made Dís look up, frowning, but she ruffled her eldest’s sleep-mussed hair as she made to answer it, assuming it was Thorin. He must have been more out of sorts than he let on, to leave without his key. The thought almost made her forgive him. Almost.

“What’d you forget?” Dís asked, throwing the door open, but was greeted not by the sight of Thorin’s dour face frowning down at her, but by a riot of red curls tickling her chin as Hervor gathered her in a bone-crushing hug. “Oof. Good morning.”

“I did tell her not to do that,” Thyra offered by way of an apology. She had a basket over one arm and Alfur, the baby, in the other.

“Needs to be done!” Hervor insisted, voice muffled in Dís’s chest. Gimli was sleeping in a sling tied around his mother’s back, unconsciously chewing on one of her trailing braids. “Oh, you poor thing, I’ll tell you right now it wasn’t your fault, whatever you’re thinking! Just remember all the scrapes we got in when we were young and you’ll see there wasn’t a thing our parents could have done to stop us. Nothing stubborner than a dwarfling or more determined to make mischief.”

Hervor was rubbing Dís’s back so vigorously that if she was flint, there would have been a conflation in the doorway. “Good news travels fast?” Dís asked Thyra wryly over Hervor’s head.

Thyra merely smiled at her warmly, “Aye and it is good news for all’s well, in the end.” Holding out the basket for Dís to take she added, “After an exciting night, I thought our wee adventurers might need a bit more to break their fast than’s custom. Go on, hot out of the oven!”

It was not easy going, extricating one arm from Hervor’s tight embrace, but Dís managed it, inclining her head to welcome them all inside. She couldn’t wave, not with the basket and Hervor clinging to her, matching Dís step for step into the sitting room, as if she had welded her arms about her friend’s middle.

“Morning missus!” Kíli called from the table, sliding off his chair and hopping one-legged across the floor to stand before the women. “Did Mister Bifur tell you ‘bout my leg, Missus Thyra? It got awfully bloody, want to see? Oooh, Mam, Mam!”

“What is it, love?” Dís asked, breathing easier since Hervor decided to indulge her son and let go of her so she could kneel on the floor and whistle through her teeth at the bandages that were wrapped around Kíli’s leg.

“Can I gets a leg of iron, as Dáin has?” he asked eagerly.

“‘Fraid not,” Dís shook her head. “That should heal up just fine, Mister Bifur took his care with it.”

“I’m sure he’d like to see how the invalid’s getting on, in any case,” Thyra said. The words on their own were nothing, but she spoke almost shyly and it was this uncharacteristic delivery that made Dís cock her head at her strangely. Thyra wet her lips and went on, “We thought we’d take the lads off your hands for the day, if you’d like. Have ‘em pass time with us, so you can have a bit o’peace, hmm?”

Before she finished speaking, Dís had already begun to shake her head, “I couldn’t. Out of the question, you’ve got four of our own and one on the way, in case you’ve forgotten - ”

“And by last count there are four very willing dwarves who are happy to look after the lot of ‘em,” Hervor interrupted, rising. “Thyra, myself, Bifur and my father - I’m sure if I called on Maeva she’d be happy to help as well, but I don’t think she’ll be needed. That’s already four times the number of hands here, plenty for two more children.”

Before Dís could refuse again, Thyra added, “You’ll repay the favor, I’m sure, when I’m needing a lie-in or a day to meself. I know you’d take mine quick as blinking.”

Dís surely would, but it was different with Thyra. She had four children and needed to rise hours before the sun to fire the ovens. By Dís’s reckoning, that was a suffering that deserved to be repaid by childminding.

“You aren’t even dressed for court,” Hervor pointed out, looking Dís over and shaking her head. “At least think about it while you - ”

“I’m not going, there’s too much to do, washing up and all, there’s piles of laundry and - ”

“Ah, there you have it!” Thyra smiled broadly. “Can’t hardly have them lads underfoot when you’re doing the washing, can you? Hervor’ll take ‘em ‘til the morning rush is through, and I’ll send one of me brothers down to collect them and lend a hand at the shop. It’ll help ‘em learn their sums, if nothing else.”

“Don’t be Thorin,” Hervor added, when it looked like Dís was going to refuse them again and mean it. “Take help when it’s offered. Here, we’re offering help. Take it.”

Dís sighed, her shoulders slumped and she barely managed to get out an, “Alright, then,” before Hervor’s arms were around her again and she had all the air forced out of her lungs.

 _“There’s_ my favorite girl!” she cried happily. “Sensible! It’s what I’ve always loved best about you.”

“How about it, lads?” Dís asked, turning to her sons who had been watching the whole scene closely. “Want to spend the day with Missus Thyra and Missus Hervor?”

“I do!” Kíli shouted, eyes shining. “Does your Da have a pig to cut up, Missus Hervor?”

Hervor nodded and ruffled Kíli’s hair, “He surely does, bled and ready to be butchered, he only wants some eyes to look on and be sure he does his task well.”

With a whoop of excitement Kíli hopped back to his bedroom to dress for the day. Fíli got off his chair more slowly, looking up at his mother with anxious eyes. “You...you’ll collect us, Mam?” he asked uncertainly. “At day’s end?”

“We was thinking to have you over for supper,” Thyra said, swaying a little as her youngest began to fuss for lack of occupation. “You lads and your Mam - and Thorin as well, if he’s able.”

It was only because the refusal of their hospitality would have been all over rude that Dís nodded, “I’ll come for supper,” she nodded and added, for Fíli’s benefit, “and we’ll all come back to the house together after.”

Visibly more comfortable Fíli dashed away from his breakfast plate and made to change his clothes. Dís watched him go with a heavy heart. How long would it be until he trusted her not to leave him? Aside from the bandages on his knee, Kíli’s spirits had made a rapid recovery. Fíli, she could tell, was still horribly troubled by what he’d heard - and what _had_ he heard? His mother clinging to stubbornness because her brother and cousin were determined to make a child of her again. She, a widow with two sons of schooling years and they _still_ thought they had the right to say where she went and with whom.

For it had nothing at all to do with Dáin she reflected as she made her way down to the river, having said her good-byes to her sons and made her thank-yous to Hervor and Thyra. Marry him. What an absurd thought. Her place was not in the Iron Hills, made a Lady in fact, not merely in name. Her place was wherever Thorin was and he was here in the Ered Luin.

Just because she knew she would remain at her brother’s side for always, it did not follow that he could take it upon himself to command her movements, like an automaton to be wound and set moving on whatever path he saw fit to place her. She _chose_ to throw her lot in with him. It was not for Thorin to cheapen her choice with commands.

 _I’ll look after him,_ she thought, with only a small pang of guilt slicing her like a blade through the ribs. She did not remember when she made that promise to herself, but she knew all too well why. After Azanulbizar, when they were all so heartsick they hadn’t the strength for tears, she realized Thorin hadn’t anyone to take care of him.

The icy water shocked her hands and she shivered.

In those dark days, their people turned to her brother, so young - younger than she was now - as their leader, their king. Her grandfather was dead, her father was gone, their mother retreated from them both by inches daily and Frerin...Frerin.

If her elder brother lived, she wondered if things might have been different. Exiled in the Blue Mountains still, but perhaps Thorin would smile more. His heart might be lighter, his life not so burdensome. Perhaps he would not wake in the night, screaming. It was Frerin who held them together all those cold nights on the road, she realized that now. As she grew older she wondered more and more if his cheer was less natural than she always assumed it was. Thorin brought with him duty, that sustained him. Dís counted practicality among her few merits. Frerin brought them laughter, the greatest gift anyone could have given them.

That was what she wanted when she wed. Laughter, happiness, sweetness. She had all that from Víli and more. What would their lives be if _he_ had lived? Would her sons have fled from their room in the dead of night, convinced their mother was going to give them up? Give up the best of her life to marry Dáin?

Marry Dáin. Impossible.

The river carried away most of the dirt from their tunics and trousers; lye soap and a firm scrub upon the washboard did the rest. The river was nearly deserted and those few dwarves who ambled about with their own washing were not so well known to her that she was required to do more than nod at them for civility’s sake. Dís kept her head down and tried not to meet their eyes. She was in no mood to talk to anyone, though chatter might have broken up the tedium. Her own thoughts kept her well occupied.

She was home and pinning up clothes on the line by midday, heating a cauldron for underthings that required harder washing. If she had been in better spirits, she would have stopped at taken a meal, but she wasn’t hungry. There was little in the larder and she could not think of going into town to buy anything. There might be lords or guardsmen about who would see her in her work clothes and wonder about it. Or worse, they might not recognize her at all.

Dís would see her brother later and she could bear that, perhaps even well enough to extend Thyra’s invitation to him, though she could not say with confidence that he would accept it. Already she was beginning to forgive him, but Dwalin was a different matter entirely.

 _Dwalin._ Her hands curled into fists and tears sprang to her eyes simultaneously when her thoughts turned to him, her thoughts all amuddle. He had no right. He had every right. It wasn’t his business. It had always been his business.

The fact of the matter was, where Dwalin was concerned, Dís had no idea whether she ought to be forgiving him or herself.

So wrapped up was she in spending all her energy deliberately not thinking of him that when a long, broad shadow fell over her she tensed and cried out, “Oh, go _away,”_ before she turned and realized that she was shouting at the wrong brother.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, hand over her heart when she saw Balin standing behind her. Shadows grew longer as the day wore on; it was later than she thought. “Sorry. I thought you were your brother.”

Balin raised an eyebrow at her, “That’s a mistake few would make, I think you’ve been at your task too long.”

Brushing a few sweaty strands of hair back into the thick, unadorned braid she tied before she went out, Dís let out a short bark of a laugh, “Could be. Or maybe we’re both addled, you've strayed a bit far from the council halls.”

“Not so far as that,” Balin shrugged. “I’m taking the long way back - have you eaten today?”

Trust Balin to see _everything_. “Fíli and Kíli didn’t finish their breakfast,” she shrugged, stirring the pot of boiling clothes idly.

“Ah, two eggs and toast crusts,” he nodded and Dís squirmed a little, like a dwarfling caught in some act of mischief. Balin never failed to make her feel like a child, but there was an odd comfort in that. It was always comforting to have one about whom she could put her faith in, one dwarf who always seemed to know what to do.

Rather than lecture her on the importance of taking food at regular intervals, Balin nodded at the sack of still-wet clothing waiting to be hung on the line. “Would you take help, if it was offered?”

_Don’t be Thorin._

“If you’re offering,” Dís nodded with a wan smile. “I’ll surely take it.”

Balin smiled back, also a pale imitation of his usual warmth and the two worked in silence for a few minutes before he broke it, inquiring, “Where are the lads, this fine day? Wriggled out of their chores?”

“Laundering’ll only be one of their chores once they do more washing than splashing,” she replied evenly. “Nah, they’re with Thyra and her brood. She wanted to give me a bit of peace.” Taking a deep breath to steel herself she forced her voice to be even as she asked, “Dwalin told you then? What happened?”

“Something happened?” Balin blinked at her, surprised. “I thought you and Thorin were on the outs, I heard nothing about the boys.”

Cursing herself, Dís opened her mouth to explain the situation, but shut it when Balin held up his hand to stop her. “I’m sure it wasn’t as important as all that, not if they’re well enough to go visiting today.”

“They’re well,” she confirmed and he nodded, satisfied. Well in body, if not in mind. ‘Thorin and I...we’ll be…”

Dís trailed off, but Balin just looked at her, his expression patient and he made no motion to hurry her along nor prodded her to speak more than she wanted to. Balin was not so very aged, but to Dís he always seemed...almost a second father. Or what a father ought to be. Kind. Wise. Accepting. If not what a father ought to be, then everything she wanted a father to be and she could not help unburdening herself to him. “We had a fight. A bad one. It upset the lads”

Balin clucked his tongue sympathetically and turned the basket over, making a seat of it and prompting her to rest beside him, “You needn’t tell me, if you don’t want to, I might...I think I know what it’s about.”

“Do you?” she asked, eyebrows raising. “I didn’t think you were so clever you could read minds.”

“I have many hidden talents,” Balin winked at her and she smiled, briefly. “Would it have had anything to do with our cousin, Lord of the Iron Hills?”

Dís shook her head and scrubbed a red, chapped hand over her face, “Did the whole village know before me?”

“Hardly the whole village,” Balin said, reaching over and unknotting her messy braid, tugging the strands back into place. Thorin wasn’t whinging over nothing the week prior; Balin was a hard braider, but Dís didn’t mind the discomfort, it distracted her from the ever-present ache in her chest. “Have you thought what you might decide?”

“I couldn’t,” she said immediately, shaking her head and rubbing her hands up and down her arms as if she were chilled though the afternoon was still warm enough. “I just...couldn’t. Not _him_ , not...not ever.”

A low hum was all the answer she got for her stilted response. Half turned away, she could not see Balin’s face and she fancied he was disappointed in her. He probably ought to be, other dwarrowdams of noble houses might have answered differently. Even if they did not marry of love, duty bound them in their choices and gave them solace in their matchmaking. Dís would _never_ have peace if she wed Dáin, not for a moment.

“Do you think I made the wrong choice?” she asked, grateful she could not see his face so she did not have to witness Balin’s immediate reaction. She felt his hands still in her hair and cringed. “Should I… _should_ I? Or should I have done? Years ago?”

After a brief pause his hands took up the rhythm of plaiting again. “I may not be the best dwarf to ask,” Balin replied, almost apologetically. “I’m...rather prejudiced in the matter, all told.”

“But I _am_ asking,” Dís said, almost desperately. Rightly or wrongly, Balin would tell her once and for all. He had to. He knew everything. “Please.”

There was another long, contemplative pause, all the while Balin’s fingers combed through her hair. It might have been soothing if her heart was not pounding so furiously. “There are many reasons to make a marriage,” he said at last. “Duty, sometimes, or because it seems the thing to do under whatever circumstances the occasion falls under. I think often, the reason is love alone. Either could be judged right or wrong. It depends on how it comes out in the end.”

“I could never love him,” Dís blurted out. “Dáin. I can’t. I...I can hardly stand to _look_ at him, I...I almost _hate_ him. I know it’s wrong, I know I shouldn’t, but - but he let my brother and grandfather burn, all of them. And he had no choice and there was no choice and it was almost fifty years ago, but I can’t forgive him. It’s been all I could do not to spit in his face every time he passes. If it is my duty, I can’t - I can’t do it.”

Balin’s arm was around her, his hand guiding her head to rest upon his shoulder and Dís felt hot tears pouring from her eyes. She wrapped her arms around her cousin’s waist and wept into his beard. “Shh,” he breathed, kissing her temple. “Hush now, my lass. Hush now.”

“It’s a wicked grudge,” she whispered.

“Then we are all wicked,” Balin replied, his voice as soft as a breeze. Dís looked at him, startled.

“But you...you don’t.”

“I do,” Balin nodded solemnly. “We all of us bear dark thoughts, unworthy, in our hearts. No matter what Men might say, we are not wrought of stone and steel. A broken heart is not so easily reforged as a splintered sword. The seams are less well-concealed.”

Dís marveled. Balin. Dutiful Balin, unfailingly polite in the execution of his duty bore a grudge? An unworthy grudge? She remembered little of the long, sad road taken away from Moria, but she did remember Balin, at her brother’s side, or her mothers. Gently offering suggestions, gently advising, aiding. Gently, gently, gently. While others flinched at raised voices, wept silently as they prepared the evening meals or sobbed openly when night fell and dark dreams came, Balin seemed as solid, strong, and steadfast as a mountain.

She tried to emulate that. She helped as much as she could by daylight and stifled her tears in her pillow come nightfall. The thought that all this time Balin might have done the same shook the bedrock of her world. “How do you do it?” she asked him, wonderingly. “How do you bear it all so well?”

Balin fixed her with a small sad smile and dried her tears. “Ah, lassie. I don’t bear it half as well as you think, but I do bear it. I know my duty and we must carry on as best we can. It does our honored dead no credit to do otherwise. We can do nothing but our best and if your best is to break bread with Dáin without cursing him aloud, then that is all you can do.”

“But do you think I should marry him?” she asked again. “I don’t want...just tell me what you think? Do you think I ought to have done it years ago? Instead of choosing where I did? Not the answer from the philosophy books, please, what do _you_ think?”

Balin paused and looked sorrowful. “This same question was put to me the other night,” he said, his eyes unfocused and far away. Then he turned to her again and almost smiled. Balin raised a hand to her face and stroked his thumb fondly across her cheek. “I’ll answer now as I did then, for I meant it truly: I’ve never had a quarrel with any decision you’ve made. Not a one.”

He was, at the end of the day, just a dwarf. Not her Maker, with the power to look upon all her wrongdoings and forgive them. Nor was he even her father. Yet on that little patch of earth, far away from home, with his hand rubbing warm and comforting circles on her back, Dís felt Balin’s approval. Wrapping her arms around him she holding on tightly and grabbed hold of it, like a lifeline.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Felt a little weird, splitting the chapter up like that, but I really thought they were two parts of one whole. I suppose that's Dís and Thorin for you.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Note:** This chapter contains some narration about Dáin taking some care of his amputated leg, but it isn't graphic.

Balin was long gone by the time the washing was ready to be taken inside. Dís was folding the last of their faded quilts when another shadow fell upon her, longer and broader than the first. If the sun hadn’t been hanging low and orange over the surrounding peaks, she’d have known who it was who watched her without looking. Despite her earlier mistake, there was no question that Dwalin had come upon her at last. She didn’t snap at him to go this time, she didn’t say a word. Just kept taking the washing off the line.

For a long while it seemed they were going to be locked in the silence together, one still as stone the other moving with the jerky repetition of a broken marionette. Dís did not want to see him she feared she’d lose all her anger if she had to look into his honest brown eyes and see more of the hurt from the night before. Anger made her brave and there was no telling what she would do if she lost her courage now.

“Tell me.” Two words, spoken too loudly, too harshly. Dwalin the Fearsome come to call, that dwarf of legend whose axes were an extension of his arms, who cut if he got too close. “Please.”

And then her own dear Dwalin again. Softer voice, same deadly embrace.

“What’s to tell?” she asked, keeping her back to him. The last of the bedsheets were down, ghosts in her arms as she tried to fold them evenly. The wind seemed determined to fight her on it, but Dís was stubborn.

“You know,” he said, closer now, he’d come closer. Not close enough that she could feel his warmth against her back, but close enough that he could grab her tunic or her arm if she tried to flee. Dís wondered what she would do if he held her, fight back? Melt in his arms? Spit in his face?

“I don’t see how that’s - ,” she began, but gave up the haughty tone. It didn’t suit her, it didn’t suit them and she was tired at playacting the Lady who knew what to say, what to do, how to act. She didn’t know a damned thing and just wanted to be Dís again, in her forge, letting the clang of her hammer do her talking for her. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Dwalin tensed behind her, she felt it, a thickness in the air. _I want you to say you won’t marry him,_ she imagined the words, a deep rumble in his chest, heartbreaking in their sincerity, vexing in the implied command. _Say you won’t marry him._

“I want you to be honest and tell me true,” he began and Dís braced herself for what she was sure would follow, the command, the plea. “Have you made your decision?”

Finally, she turned around. Dwalin’s hands were loose at his sides, his axes safely strapped to his back. He was drawn up straight and tall as a mountain, but there was no scorn in his expression, no expectation of obedience. Merely the same loyal resignation she saw on her wedding day. Remembering made her eyes sting.

“I don’t want to marry Dáin,” she said at last, hugging the sheets to her stomach like a shield. “I don’t want to marry _anyone_. I was married, I had my time, it’s over now and let that be the end of it.”

If she was expecting Dwalin to look relieved, she was disappointed. When he came a step closer to her, then another when she did not back away, Dís saw the concern in his furrowed brow, his slightly parted lips. It confused her, she thought he’d be happy, at least. One of them ought to be happy.

“Are you worried what folks’d say?” he asked, looking down at her carefully. “There’s no law against it, only custom.”

“No!” she exclaimed and would have thrown her arms in the air in exasperation, but for the fact that she would soil her clean sheets. “Do you know - do you have any idea _why_ I married Víli?”

“Because you loved him,” Dwalin replied, prompt as anything, he might have been answering questions for a schoolmaster. _Who is the first of our race?_ Father Durin. _What color should steel be heated to if it’s meant to become a hammer?_ Brown. _Why should you marry?_ Because you’re in love.

Dís would have laughed it if wasn’t all so sad. “Of course not! I mean,” she amended because Dwalin seemed ready to argue with her. “I _did_ love him, of course I did. But that’s not why I married him. Loving someone isn’t good enough reason to get married.”

Dwalin looked thunderstruck. “‘Course it is,” he began, but she shook her head violently, hair falling over her face, hiding it from view. “Why’d you marry him, then? If love’s not enough?”

“It’s not,” she maintained, stubbornly, like a child insisting there was a monster lurking beneath their bed though their mother and father confirmed that the space was empty. “I married him because I wanted to be happy. He made me very happy. And then he was taken from me like all the rest and I won’t do it again, I _can’t.”_

Tears again. She’d done nothing but cry for weeks on end, it seemed. Not in front of Thorin, never for Thorin. All the tears she’d held back and swallowed and sobs she’d stifled in a pillow were back now, choking her and making her tremble hard beneath Dwalin’s hand, big and solid and such a terrible comfort upon her arm.

“Stop,” Dís moaned and he dropped his hand immediately, but didn’t back away. “Just _stop._ I can’t, so stop _asking.”_

“I’m not,” Dwalin said in a voice so soft and gentle she wanted to curl up in it and die. “I’m not - ”

“You _are_ ,” she insisted, but she did not back away, she came closer because she could not stand not to, closer to his strong arms and his hard axes and she didn’t care whether she was cut or not. “You do. All the time. Not...in words, but I made myself a promise that I couldn’t do it again and you…you make it very hard to keep that promise.”

Dwalin’s leaned in close, his eyes were all she could see, warm and dark with the deepest flecks of honey-gold just around the blacks. “What would you have me do, lass?” he asked her, tilting her chin up without touching her, his finger the barest suggestion close to her skin. “Where would you have me go?”

“Nowhere!” she cried loudly. Her arms were wrapped so tightly around her ribs, Dís felt like she was trying to hold herself together or stop her heart from hammering out of her chest and escaping. “Nowhere, you can’t go away from me, from us, I couldn’t bear it!”

She could not. A thousand fond glances she could brush off, a hundred longing looks she could force from her mind with only the shallowest pang of regret. Having him, but _not_ having him was something she had made herself a master of these twenty years, if not, (as she was sometimes loathe to admit to herself) longer. To have him, to truly have him and to lose him would be a pain Dís was sure she would not survive. This ache of the moment, these tears, could be survived and soon she knew she could look upon Dwalin again and smile.

It was worth it, this pounding in her chest, twisting in her bowels, and throbbing in her eyes, to know that he would still be there, half a step away. Safer, by far, than being cleaved to her until the Maker took him. Nearly everything she loved died. Thorin, she had, and Fíli and Kíli. Dís was sure she would not be permitted more than that, she did not want to take the risk.

Dwalin’s hands were on her again, gently resting on her shoulders, easily shaken off, but she made no move to do so. “I won’t go anywhere,” he said quietly, resting his head upon hers. “Not if you won’t go away from me. Because _I_ couldn’t bear it either.”

It was too much, he was too close and Dís could not think of it before she tilted her head up and crushed her mouth against his and ungainly press of flesh and teeth. It was the work of an instant, Dwalin only gathered himself enough to return pressure for pressure before she broke away, stepping back and looking up at him with tear-filled eyes.

“I can’t,” she shook her head again, trembling. “I _can’t_ , but you know, you _must_ know - if I was going to marry anyone, it’d be you.”

Without waiting for a reply, without a backward glance, Dís turned on her heel and ran with all the speed that was within her back to the house. When she was behind the door she sank against it, bedclothes tumbling from her arms, falling onto the floor in a heap. She sat crumpled there a long time, dreading the approach of heavy footfalls, the sound of a fist hammering on the door, but all was silence, save for the sound of her ragged breaths as she tried to stop herself from crying.

* * *

Bandages and salve were the only thing to be done for flesh rubbed raw all day long. If only wounded pride was so easily wrapped up.

Dáin could not recall feeling so chastened in all his life. There ought to be anger, _fury_ that his impoverished cousin had taken him to task in a public street, given him a dressing down like he was a child caught telling lies and not a great Lord of the Longbeard line, but he could not summon any wrath, only sorrow. Sorrow that his cousin was so overburdened. Sorrow that his presence seemed only to compound those burdens.

It had been forty years since the battle that took away so much from himself and his cousins. Some old wounds healed over with time, others merely festered. Dáin grit his teeth as he patted dry the red, inflamed flesh of his left leg, or what remained of it. He thought he knew all there was to know about festering, but it seemed he had been mistaken.

Looking back now, his thoughts about this visit to his kinsmen seemed hopelessly naive. How could he have supposed them to be living, elevated, among their peers in the Blue Mountains? Many a time they wintered in the Iron Hills, had he ignored their patched and dirty clothing, they way they fell upon the food in the halls ravenously or else made straight for the healers’ quarters? Of course he had. He was a child, only a child who looked forward to visits from his cousins and the stories they told of fending off orc attacks and the funny tales of the stupidity of the Men they encountered.

Callousness of that sort could be forgiven in a child, but he was a dwarf grown now and should have known better.

Duty-bound they both returned to the interior of the mountain, though Dáin had not taken a meal and he was sure Thorin had not. They sat down side by side, but neither looked at the other, nor spoke overmuch - Thorin had not spoken at all. Tight-lipped and surly he was where before he had been eloquent, even passionate when he talked about the tolls on the highways between the kingdoms. Dáin admired him, admired the interest he had taken in the common folk. He admired him _still_ , truth be told, though now he realized that his cousin was so intimately acquainted with the struggles of the low-born because he counted himself among their number.

Somehow, he hadn’t seen it. No, that could not be so, he had _seen_ their poverty, he’d _seen_ the threadbare places on Thorin’s coat, the loose threads around the shoulder seams of Dwalin’s and no one could miss the meagre jewels his lady cousin wore, but he had not known what it all meant.

If he had any wisdom at all, he would have shut his mouth after he insulted that lovely young mother in their sitting room. No wonder Thorin lost his temper all over him; if _that_ had not shown him he knew nothing of his cousins’ lives here in the West, little else could have been expected to open his eyes.

By the Maker, the rooms he had been given as a _guest_ were larger and better appointed than his cousins’ apartment! Deep within the rock he was, there were tapestries on the walls and plush carpets on the floor to trap the heat, the fireplace alone would have taken up one entire wall of Thorin’s living quarters. The place was clean, scrupulously so for three rooms that were meant to house four dwarves, but plain. And cold, windows on half the walls, unshuttered to take advantage of as much daylight as could be used before they needed to light the lamps and burn their fuel away.

Fuel that was probably dearly bought. Thorin concerned himself not merely with a household budget, but the welfare of a people just as badly or worse off than himself. What had he been _thinking_ , joking about not paying a single toll, like it was something to laugh at? If Thorin didn’t know what the tolls were, they could not trade, they could not _eat._

His first impulse, after recoiling from his cousin’s cruelty in shock was to ask, _What can I do? How can I help?_ But judging from Thorin’s words to him, he knew he would never accept his help. Not from one he considered a desecrator of the dead.

Dáin repressed a shudder as he hauled himself up upon one of the crutches that leaned against his bedside, intent on crossing the room to obtain the salves he used to dress the sore spots on his leg. A sudden knock at the door made him pause half-way up, calling out a weary, “Come in.”

Nar strode inside, but hesitated when he saw his lord half undressed, performing his nightly ablutions. “Are you occupied?” he asked, reaching back for the door handle. “Shall I come back later?”

“No, it’s no bother,” Dáin shook his head and smiled crookedly at him as he took two bottles and a roll of clean linen bandages back to his bedside with him. All the while he was conscious of Nar watching him, closely. Severe injuries such as he suffered were borne proudly by the warriors of their people, but there was always something less than admiration in Nar’s stare. It felt uncomfortably like disapproval, like he was not Dáin Ironfoot, boy-hero of Azanulbizar, but Dáin, the clumsy eldest child of Náin who did himself a harm taking too many risks at sport.

Sitting heavily on the bed, Dáin smiled again and gestured Nar into a chair. “Sit, sit,” he urged. “I’m getting a crick in my neck looking up at you.”

“Ah, but that makes us even,” Nar smirked back, dragging an armchair closer to Dáin’s bed. “I’ve been nursing those same pains since you turned seventy.”

“That’s something I can’t help, ‘less you want me sitting down all the time, but how would that look?” Dáin replied pleasantly. Nar’s smirk broadened into something that could tentatively be called a smile, then his whole face hardened again. “Something on your mind?”

Nar was not one to belabor a point and he was always quick and forthright with his opinions. It was a quality Dáin cherished since his grandfather’s death put him on the throne of the Iron Hills, still so young and untested. Nar was almost a second father to him and when he spoke, Dáin accorded him all the respect one would give a beloved patriarch. “I heard that Thorin Oakenshield paid you deep disrespect today,” he said simply.

Dáin’s stomach turned over in his belly and he set to wrapping the flesh of his leg very meticulously, so he wouldn’t have to look in Nar’s face. “It was the other way around,” he shrugged. “Well, he...he was very angry. But I think I gave him just cause.”

A mirthless snort made Dáin look up. “Just cause?” Nar shook his head disdainfully. “That lad’s got a temper on him could rival a dragon’s breath for fire. You can see it in the line of him, in his face. Used to watch dwarves like that in the guard, they could be a danger even to their own kinsmen when they got their dander up.”

“I don’t know,” Dáin replied slowly. “If I’d suffered what he’d suffered, I might get a bit firey myself. I can’t say he was...right to act as he did, but I can see why he did it.”

“You’re young,” Nar said, an old phrase that cropped up between the two of them when he thought Dáin was being overgenerous in his assessment of another. Equal parts fondness and exasperation in his voice, Nar continued, “That lad comes from a line of hot-headed dwarves, too much led by passion, not enough reason. You don’t remember the strife ‘tween your grandfather and old King Thrór.”

No, Dáin did not. His brow furrowed as he tried to remember his grandfather and great-uncle, if they seemed strained with one another, but nothing seemed amiss in his memory - then again, he was a cursed child when they came to the Iron Hills, if there was discord how was he to know about it? “They always seemed cordial when I saw them.”

“Aye, _seemed_ and it was a weak and crumbling facade,” Nar informed him flatly. “And that’s only because Thrór’s queen was dead when he and his people sought refuge amongst us. She _hated_ your grandfather, the last time he stepped foot in Erebor, she would have taken his head off in a fight if your father and Thráin hadn’t put a stop to it - oh, I was there. I remember it well.”

Dáin felt very much the child again, his eyes wide and mouth slack at this unexpected revelation. “What?”

Nar sat back in his chair, mouth a grim line. “Sigdís took offense to some comment or other Grór made about his brother. Thrór was prepared to let the matter go, but she wouldn’t. It’s what he got for taking a born warrior off the field and making a mother of one who ought never have borne children. She was a true death-dealer and that blood-lust simmers. Took three dwarves to hold her back, her son and both her brothers - one of them being Fundin the Fearless. We saw evidence of _his_ son’s temper the other night. Grór predicted that his brother’s line would never endure, that’d they’d burn themselves out, and he was right.”

“Why are you saying all this?” Dáin asked. Not once in all the years he had known him had Nar spoken so bluntly and so unfavorably about his cousins. Always he expressed the same regret that so many troubles had been visited upon their line, troubles that Dáin himself thought were cause enough to make any dwarf surly and inclined to snap at the smallest provocation. “Why now? I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you?” Nar asked, one of his eyebrows quirking toward his hairline. “After tasting some of Thorin’s wrath - ”

“Come on now,” Dáin rarely interrupted Nar, but the conversation was making him uncomfortable. “It was only a bit...a bit of shouting. I’d be a water-hearted dwarf indeed if I couldn’t abide a few nasty words thrown at me. I could hardly show my face in front of the Guard if I were thus. If you’ve come to mend my feelings,” he added, glancing down at the bandaged remains of his left leg, “I thank you, but I’ve had worse hurts and survived. Thorin was angry, aye, but that’s all he was.”

Nar swallowed hard and looked away, muscles in his neck tightening. “You’re young,” he said and seemed about to speak more, but Dáin interrupted him before he could go on.

“Young, I know, and not in the least bit worldly. Not the way he is - _they_ are,” Dáin corrected himself. “I was so...I ought to have left him alone. I don’t know what I was - nay, I do know, I wanted to...to pay him compliment, earn his approval. And how did I try to do such a thing? By commending him for his ability to pay tolls! Couldn’t have been hollower praise than if I told him he tied his boots sp well this morning the knots weren’t in danger of coming undone.”

“Living in poverty is no grounds for taking on the mantle of king,” Nar groused, agitated. “Just the opposite, I think.”

“Well, I thought he spoke well today,” Dáin retorted. “I still do. Thorin’s...angry, surely, but they’ve every reason to be! You know even better than I do what Erebor was and to be reduced to _this?_ I’d pity them if I didn’t think it’d just give them more cause to hate me.”

“One among their number hasn’t forgotten her cordiality.” Nar was on his feet now, in defiance of Dáin’s request that he sit. Like a healer or a parent he gathered up the bandages and medicines that were unused and put them away. “The Lady Sigdís, the younger. Nothing at all like the dwarf she was named for, except in mein. It does her credit, she has nothing of the brother’s fury in her, nothing at all.”

Dáin stared after him. What had gotten into Nar? His thoughts seemed to fly away like a startled flock of ravens. One minute he was saying Thorin was no true King and predicting the end of Thrór’s line and the next he lauded the virtues of his lady cousin. “She’s very hospitable,” Dáin replied slowly. “And kindly. But I hardly see what she - ”

“It shows a certain callousness, perhaps,” Nar spoke up quietly, talking more to himself than to Dáin. “Taking up with a miner of uncertain lineage. But the mother was dead then, she must have been unmoored. Likely the brother did not take an active interest in her welfare.”

“Nar, enough!” Dáin made use of his crutches to rise to his feet, moving as swiftly as he was able to his kinsman’s side. “If you speak so meanly of Thorin for my sake, then I’ll tell you plainly I wish you wouldn’t. I don’t need cheering or bolstering and I certainly don’t need it through his degradation, he’s been degraded already, far too much.”

Although he caught Nar’s eye easily enough, his expression within was guarded, almost blank. “I never intended to give offence,” Nar replied stiffly.

“Well, you haven’t,” Dáin added more lightly, but he could not bring himself to smile again. “Thorin’s miles away and didn’t hear you.”

Nar made no response and Dáin had nothing else to say. “I’m going to bed,” he announced, turning and making his way back to his own bedside. “I’ll see you on the morrow.”

Recognizing a dismissal when he heard one, Nar walked straight-backed and rigid to the bedroom door. Dáin lay in the darkness for a long time after he extinguished his candle, unable to shake the feeling that despite all that Nar had spoken to him that night, the secrets revealed, there was something else beneath it all that he was not telling him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I don't know what's to be done with them. I mean, really. This is getting ridiculous.


	18. Chapter 18

Thorin came back to the house just as Dís was getting ready to go out. She’d only just finished putting her clothes away, methodically separating out everyone’s washing and even folding the clothes before she tucked them inside their proper clothespress or hung coats and caps on pegs. Anything to take up her time and thoughts so that she was not ready to be out the door ages before the dinnertime hour descended upon her. She was not expecting Thorin to be back so soon. 

“I’m going - ” she began, but stopped when an accidental glance at her brother’s face revealed a mouth that was drawn thin and tight, a vein in his temple that stuck out from his face prominently. On another day she might have stopped, put the kettle on, asked what was wrong, but she simply did not have the energy. It did not mean looking at her brother when he was clearly upset was _easy_ on her, it never was, but she just could not take his troubles on today. She had too many of her own to contend with. “Bombur and Thyra invited us over for supper, Fíli and Kíli are there now, I’m sure you don’t - ”

“Am I welcome?” Thorin asked, then clamped his mouth shut. His narrowed eyes widened slightly and the furrow between his eyebrows smoothed itself out; he seemed as surprised to have asked as Dís was to hear him asking. 

“Of course,” she blurted out before she could help himself. Thorin hesitated, shifting his feet, looking like a nervous schoolboy who’d forgotten his quill and couldn’t quite work up the nerve to ask for another one. Dís fidgeted awkwardly, winding a loose strand of hair around one of her fingers. 

Maybe they could pretend he hadn’t asked. She could run off to Thyra’s home and make some excuse for Thorin, _he’s not up to it,_ being neither a lie nor the truth and therefore the only statement she felt she could make without loathing herself for yet another slight against her nearest and dearest.

The silence stretched on long enough to become uncomfortable. Thorin broke it, fingers nervously unclasping his coat, “Would you prefer I stay behind?”

Oh, Dís hated that question, not for the first time either. Thorin loved nothing more when he was out of sorts to take the question of companionship and placing the responsibility for answering squarely upon the shoulders of the one who would be in companion. _Would you rather if I came along? Would you prefer I stay behind? It makes no difference to me._

Two could play at this game. “Do you _want_ to come?” she asked, vaguely nettled by the knowledge that it hardly mattered whether or not she’d folded their clothes; if they kept this up much longer she would be late.

“I - ” Thorin hesitated and Dís tapped the toe of her boot against the floor, the very picture of impatience. “I do. But only if you don’t mind.” 

It was so tempting to imagine declaring that she did. To leave Thorin to enjoy warmth of a small fire, a meal of hard cheese and stale bread while she indulged in company - but she could not give in to it. It would be an act of cruelty and she was trying so hard not to be cruel.

A thought came to mind, unbidden, hot mouths crushed together by a clothesline, a taste of what could not be and she swallowed hard against a lump in her throat. “I don’t mind,” she said softly, then raised her eyes when Thorin hesitated taking his belt off. “I don’t. Just hurry along so we don’t keep them waiting.”

It took Thorin a moment to find his plainer clothes, unused to seeing his coats neatly lined up on his bedroom wall, his belts curled atop his clothespress and his tunics folded neatly in drawers. Usually after washday he came home to find his things piled atop his bed, save those tunics Dís stole for her own use when she didn’t feel like patching hers up. Once he was dressed the two set off across town, not speaking, walking quickly to make up for the time they’d spent hovering in indecision in the sitting room. 

Dís rolled her sleeves up absently, as if the meal was over already. They hadn’t brought any food or drink with them to supper, so they would be tasked with the washing up. “I feel like I’m losing all my callouses,” she muttered, rubbing her left hand idly against her right arm. “I won’t be able to pick up a pair of tongs without scorching myself soon enough.”

Thorin made a distant sound of agreement. His mind had been much on the forge lately, certainly it was as he suffered through the afternoon session and tried not to catch Dáin’s eye, or indeed, the eye of any who might cause him to lose his temper. He’d made fool enough of himself for one day, shouting at his kingdom’s nearest ally in a public street. 

It was so easy to forget himself, loose the reins on his tongue for he was not thinking of Dáin as an ally then, but an enemy. One who lived a continent away, who swept into his life like a stormcloud and washed away all his dignity. 

His father’s words of so many years ago came to him, echoing in his head, _I am thinking like a king!_

Had Thorin _ever_ thought like a king, once in his life? Never, he concluded. He thought like a warrior, a smith, a tradesman, but not a king. Not for the first time he wondered if Fate so dictated that he should be denied his kingdom because he was not fit to rule.

Sometimes, Thorin enjoyed the most ridiculous fantasies. Never for very long, it was a waste of time, unprofitable and it hurt too much, but sometimes he wondered what his life would have been if how he lived now was how he was meant to live. Would he have been happier, he wondered, as a smith of the Ered Luin, living alongside his sister, not knowing anything more, not _missing_ anything? But that was the rub, wasn’t it? The missing. 

Thorin did not maintain those fantasies for long in part because he hadn’t the imagination for it. He’d known too much of sorrow to invent a life where he did not daily feel the weight of his regrets bearing down on him, where his beard was not cut short in mourning, where his responsibilities began and ended with putting food on his family’s table. Who would he be if he led such a life? Thorin could not begin to guess.

They stood before the door that led to Bombur and Thyra’s apartment before he knew it, Dís took the initiative to bang upon the latch. She had to do it three times before the door opened; even through the thick stone, Thorin heard the commotion inside. 

Thryra stood before them, holding a hot pan in one hand and a squalling baby in the other. The pan she kept, the infant she passed off to Dís when she rose on her toes to kiss her in greeting. 

“Cutting a tooth,” she said, by way of explanation when she kissed Thorin in turn. Despite his melancholy, he almost wished she handed the pan out to him, it was sausage bread from the smell of it.

Dís made a sweet cooing noise at Alfur who lay his head on her shoulder and immediately grasped one of her braids and stuck it in his mouth to gnaw on. 

“Poor lad,” she crooned, bouncing him a little in her arms and rubbing his back. Alfur had inherited the dark hair of Bombur’s father’s line, but it was soft as down and he had a bald patch on his crown that Bofur joked perfectly matched the thinning spot on the top of his father’s head. “Oh, you’re suffering all the ills of the world, aren’t you?”

Alfur clutched at the shoulder of her coat and made a wet snuffling noise in response. His cheeks were puffy and his eyes red and swollen, but at least he stopped wailing. 

“I’ve got that string o’amber around somewheres,” Bombur said, turning this way and that, dragging his left leg slightly behind him. Lúfi, the third eldest was sitting atop the toe of his father’s boot with one hand clasped around Bombur’s leg, the other crooked so that his thumb could rest comfortably in his mouth. 

“No matter,” Dís said, hugging him with her free arm and bending to give Lú a pat on the head. His hair was the color of summer wheat, like his mother’s and stuck up in untameable tufts, too short to braid. “He’s made do with what he’s got, resourceful little fellow.”

“Mam! Mam! _UNCLE!”_ Fíli and Kíli came barrelling up to their mother, but diverted their course at the last second when they saw that their uncle had come calling as well and deemed him more worthy of their attention. Both of them were holding up little boards, that looked like the shingles on the roofs of the more expensive Mannish dwellings. 

“Look what we done!” Kíli crowed proudly, jumping up and down to bring his creation closer to Thorin’s face. Thorin knelt down before them and took the little wooden scrap from Kíli’s hand. Luckily, he was not expected to determine what the crudely carved object was, for his nephew spoke up before Thorin could take a breath and praise his effort. “It’s a sword! I did it all meself - well, not _all_ , Mister Bifur helped, but I drawed it and done the carving once he got me started! It’s grand, eh?”

“It surely is,” Thorin said, smiling for the first time in what felt like a fortnight. It looked rather like a sword, if he turned it on his side and was generous in his assessment of the accuracy. The image came to a point if nothing else. “Well done.”

“See _mine_ , Uncle, see it?” Fíli shoved his own creation under Thorin’s nose. “I done a helm - the front, see? There’s the bit for your eyes so’s you can see and I done the bit for the plume like them Eastern lords got.”

Indeed, there were many scratches upon the wood that seemed to indicate a crest. 

“Very fine,” Thorin nodded and gave Fíli another smile, ruffling his hair and earning a grin in return. He was heartened to see the lad look so cheerful, after the events of the night previous, he was worried it would be ages before Fíli trusted him again. 

A snort over his head made him look up. “Oh, of course,” Glóin groused. “They tell _you_ what it is straight off, I was made to _guess,_ you can imagine how well that went over.”

Thorin straightened up and Fíli and Kíli darted off, presumably in search of their playmates. The scraps of wood were evidently his to keep or at least hold on to for the time being. He tucked them into his coat pocket and shrugged. “Better you than me,” he replied, cocking his head down and trying to catch little Gimli’s eye. “Good evening, young master.”

The lad was at an age where he liked to go shy when it suited him, usually when he felt like being carried and cuddled. At the moment he shoved his face in his father’s beard and used it as a more than adequate hiding spot. Glóin jostled him a little and prompted, “What do you say, lad? Go on, we all know you’ve got a voice.”

“‘lo Mis’er T’orn,” he lisped quietly, peeking out to catch Thorin’s eye and then hiding again. 

Glóin shook his head, patting Gimli’s back absently. “Not court manners,” he remarked, with a note of false lament. “Still, it’ll do for now.”

Thorin sighed heavily and patted the little lad’s hair. It earned him another sneaky look and a twitch of the lips that might have been the start of a fleeting giggle. “No matter, we all of us can use a reminder from time to time.”

Glóin was ever-shrewd and both his bushy red eyebrows shot up when he clearly heard what Thorin was carefully _not_ saying. “Oh, for the love of - what’d I miss?” he asked. 

Glóin missed more of the talks than he attended, his work as steward kept him busy in springtime which, more than any season, was a time when marriage papers had to be double-checked and signed in triplicate to ensure that all exchanges of goods and property were carried out fairly. Again, Thorin thought of the forge, the orders they’d passed on, knowing their time would be utterly consumed when the caravans arrived, those orders that were still pending, those that would doubtless be pinned to the door awaiting their return. 

Thorin was saved having to explain himself by Gimli’s timely shouts of, _“Down,_ Da, _down!”_

Bilfur and Catla had come running by and used Thorin’s legs as makeshift shields against Fíli who came barreling around the corner with his hands outstretched. Thorin recognized the game instantly from the snarl that his nephew affected and his bent elbows, serving as wings. 

Many a time as a dwarfling he chased his companions around Erebor, playing Dragon to their retreating warriors. Despite what they had lost, he could never find it in his heart to scold the children for making merry when they could; the fact that they could play at being dragons without fear or heartache was a blessing in itself, Dís reminded him more than once over the years.

“Mister Thorin’s the mountain, you can’t get us ‘cos we’re in the mountain!” Cat chanted loudly, hugging Thorin’s leg tightly. Bili was only a little less forceful, bouncing on the balls of his feet, prepared to run away again.

“No fair!” Fíli protested. “You said your Da’s chair was the mountain!”

“It’s a range,” she retorted primly, sticking her tongue out at Fíli. 

Over his initial bout of shyness, Gimli toddled over to Fíli once he was set on his feet. The older dwarfling saw his chance then and took it. Tapping the smaller dwarfling on the shoulder Fíli shouted, “GIMLI’S THE DRAGON!” and all of the children shrieked in unison, prompting Thorin and Glóin to clap their hands over their ears as the little ones tripped over their feet and bumped into each other, scrambling to get away from him. 

Gimli looked slightly perplexed at all the fun, but he caught on when Kíli poked his head out behind Bombur’s chair and nodded encouragingly at him. “You’re the dragon, Gimli,” he informed him, lifting his hands up next to his face and curling his fingers into claws. “You got to catch us! Roar!”

Tilting his head to the side, Gimli took the sight of Kíli in before he straightened up and grinned broadly. 

“ROAR!” he shouted and a more darling dragon could not have been found from the Ered Luin to the Iron Hills as he ran toward Kíli as fast as his feet could carry him. Kíli, to his credit, did not try to get very far, he ran away as slowly as if his feet were stuck in a vat of pitch. Gimli caught up to him easily and seized Kíli’s tunic in both hands, giggling madly. 

“Well done!” Kíli exclaimed, hauling Gimli up in his arms and taking off after his friends. “WE’RE A FIERCE TWO-HEADED DRAGON AND WE’RE COMING TO GET YOU!”

“ROAR!” Gimli added helpfully as they tore away, narrowly avoiding a collision with his mother.

“Children do not lift children!” she called after Kíli, who was _just_ far enough away to reasonably pretend he could not hear her. Tutting, she arched an eyebrow at Thorin and her husband, inquiring, “Are you braiding your beards or will you help get the table set?”

The two did as they were bid, Thorin narrowly avoided being stabbed in the eye when a serving fork was tossed in his direction. “Where are your parents and your brother?” he asked Glóin, the matter of his own bad conduct forgotten for the moment. 

Glóin shrugged and caught a (thankfully empty) tankard that Thyra lobbed at his head. It really was much safer than attempted to carry the crockery across the room, with so many children underfoot something was bound to get smashed. “Out among their fellow healers, folks who aren’t likely to complain when a severed foot gets set out for examining with the pudding. The foot being for examining, the pudding for eating. Where are Balin and Dwalin?”

Feigning interest in the placement of a plate, Thorin paused before replying, “I haven’t any idea. Probably sick to death of my face, packed themselves off to the pub to avoid me, I shouldn’t wonder.”

Suspicion made Glóin draw himself up and fold his arms over his chest. “What did you do?” he asked accusingly. The only time Dwalin ever willingly took himself away from Thorin was when they were fighting with one another, which happened once in a blue moon and was usually Thorin’s fault. As for Balin, Glóin could only conclude that it must have been a grievous insult indeed to warrant the elder of the brothers choosing sides. 

Thorin’s mouth puckered and his eyebrows drew down in consternation. “It wasn’t me who - ” but he was cut off by a cry from Glóin when an expertly-thrown carving knife hit him, handle-side, on the nose. 

“You were meant to catch it!” Hervor shouted from across the room. “Would have done if you weren’t gossiping like a fishmonger!”

Glóin likely shouted something back at her, but she did not hear, too busy she was minding her own gossip. “Do you mean he asked you to _marry_ him?” she squeaked at Dís over a bowl of potatoes she was pounding into submission 

Dís shook her head negatively. She was perched on a stool next to Hervor, peeling back the blackened husk of a head of garlic and dropping the softened cloves into the potatoes one by one with Alfur on her knee, still chewing her hair. “Not in so many words - or at all, but that’s what Nori heard.”

“I didn’t know Nori was in town,” Thyra said, pouring a measure of cream into the potatoes along with half a stick of soft butter. “Just like him to stir up trouble the moment he’s in the gates! No _wonder_ you looked so ill this morn.”

“Hmm,” Dís hummed, licking some of the garlic pulp off her fingers. “Didn’t do me any good to hear it whispered behind closed doors.”

“They did think you were asleep,” Hervor pointed out. “And, speaking as someone who’s known you long and knows you well, you’re a _bear_ when you’re roused before your time.”

“What’ll you be doing about it?” Bofur asked. Technically he was not a part of this conversation, but the beets were quite ready to be taken out of the hot ashes at the base of the fire yet and he hadn’t anything better to do. 

“There’s naught to do,” Dís replied immediately, tugging at the shorn strands of her beard. “If he says a word about it, I’ll just tell him it’s not done and...I’m _grieving_ , aren’t I? Steadfast in war and love, isn’t that what the songs say? It’s not for me to take another husband, not one who lives a world away who I’ve not laid eyes on these forty years. Does he think I’m some woman of Man? I’ve got enough of _that_ talk from the cloth merchants in the marketplace, I don’t need it from the dwarves of the Iron Hills as well.”

Thrya made a dismissive gesture with her left hand as she put the milk in the larder. “It’s one thing for a widow to take up with someone when she’s got passed her mourning,” she agreed. “And another to do what they’re scheming. Not done, you’re right - oh, but then I could be talking nonsense, I don’t know ‘bout matchmaking and kingdoms.”

“Neither do I!” Dís cried helplessly. One of her legs was jiggling nervously to Alfur’s delight. “I say it’s not done, what do I know? I don’t know my history half so well as Dáin does, I didn’t have proper schooling. What if there’s some dusty old law says I must and that’s why they’re so sure I’ll go along with it?”

Bofur shook his head so hard his hat threatened to fly into the fire. “No chance,” he said flatly. “And if he does pull such a law out of the nethers o’some library, Balin’ll out-wit him. And if he don’t Dwalin’ll fold his arms or glare at him real hard and that’ll be the end of it.”

Hervor snorted, “Aye, that’s a fact. Or, if it comes down to Dáin’s word against your will, just do what the shieldmaidens of yore did when they were given guff ‘bout warmaking - challenge him to a duel and kick his arse. _That_ I’d lay good coin down to see.”

“Oh?” Dís asked with a wry smile that did not quite mask the sudden melancholy in her eyes at the mention of Dwalin’s name. “And which of us’d get your bet? He’s not the boy-hero for nothing, you know.”

The potato-laden spoon bopped Dís square on the nose. “I’d bet on _you_ , of course,” she said as Dís wiped her face clean, licked the potatoes off her fingers and declared that they needed more salt. “Bare-knuckle brawling, if you don’t want to go at it with sword and shield. You’d have the advantage, you’re taller than him, just grab his head, stick your arm straight out and let him swing at you ‘til he wears himself out.”

“You make it sound so _easy_ ,” Dís complained, the sorrow almost gone from her countenance. 

Hervor smiled at her with all the sweetness in the world, “I don’t really, you just look at things from the gloomiest side, that’s your brother’s influence. Someone’s got to be sensible around here.”

“Food’s on!” Bombur called out, passing by with a massive cutting board loaded with fat slabs of roast boar, juices dripping down the sides. “Tuck in!”

There was not nearly enough room at the table to accommodate the number of guests. The children made their plates and sat on the floor to eat, save the youngest who perched on their parents’ knees and were fed morsels by their mothers and fathers. Bofur took a seat on Dís’s knee while Thorin and Glóin each shared one half of the same chair and negotiated space for their elbows. 

“Where’s Bifur?” Thorin commented, peeling the still-hot flesh off his beet, trying not to get ashes in the rest of his food. 

“Headache,” Bofur replied immediately around a mouthful of boar. “He said he’d have a lie-down, join us for pipes afterwards. Reminds me, I got to take a plate in to him.” It was easier said than done, he was wedged in the space between Dís’s lap and the table; trying to fit two grown dwarves in one chair was no easy feat.

“I’ll go,” Thorin volunteered, pushing the chair back from the table and earning himself a jab in the ribs courtesy of Glóin. He wanted to come along to submerge his worst feelings in company and while the din was certainly making it difficult to think clearly, sharing a chair with his very stout cousin was not his idea of an evening well-spent either.

“Thanks,” Bofur nodded and smiled at him as though Thorin had just paid him an enormous kindness. “Remember, more spuds, less meat - he’ll eat Thyra’s sausage bread, though, by the pan.”

Thorin put together a sizeable portion of sausage bread, potatoes and beets - with an extra helping from Kíli who held his untouched beet up for snatching as Thorin passed by on the way to the bedroom. It was dark inside, lit by a single candle burning across the room. Bifur was sitting up in Thrya and Bombur’s bed, his head supported by a few pillows and an arm drawn over his eyes. The door was ajar, but Thorin made his steps loud and deliberate and knocked anyway.

“Supper,” he said, not too loudly. “If you want it.”

 _Thanks,_ Bifur signed with his right hand, not taking his left away from his eyes. Gesturing to the bedside table, he indicated that Thorin should place the plate beside him. He shifted, his left arm falling to his side, but his eyes remained closed. _No light,_ he signed. _Hurts. Mining, in my head._

Theirs was a hardy race, but Bifur had taken a terrible injury and at times it pained him still, some days worse than others. This was not one of his better days, Thorin could tell. “Do you want me to go?” he asked quietly.

 _No,_ Bifur signed rather than shaking his head, which likely would have caused him more pain. _Sit. Your voice quiet. Help eat, please._

“Of course,” Thorin replied immediately, picking up a footstool so it would not scrape against the floor as he moved it. Deliberately, he described his actions as he performed them. “I’m sitting on your right, I’ll hand you some bread - Thyra made it, with sausages and rosemary, I think. I could be wrong, I’m no cook. Here.”

Bifur’s clever fingers were only a little clumsy as he took the slice of bread from Thorin and took a slow, deliberate bite. _Good. She is good. Blessing. The children also - loud blessings._

Chuckling softly, Thorin agreed, “Aye, very loud. I don’t mind, I’ve been too much in the quiet.”

 _Your voice quiet,_ Bifur signed again. If he moved his head, opened his eyes, Thorin was sure they would be searching, curious, but he lay as still as he was able, chewing his meal slowly. _Sad. Why? If you would talk, no need to talk. I will listen._

“There isn’t much to say,” Thorin replied, sitting a little straighter, then slumping again when he remembered that Bifur could not see him. “I’m not sad, just...disappointed. In myself, I’ve no one to blame but myself and I shouldn’t trouble anyone save myself. No need to talk about it while you’re eating, I’ll just upset your digestion.”

_I asked. If you would talk, I will listen._

Bifur was one of the few Dwarves of Clan Broadbeam who Thorin knew before they settled in the Ered Luin. Truth be told, Bifur was the one who put the notion in his mind, years ago, when he was still only a prince, only a heir whose word held little sway with his father or grandfather. In those days, his influence over things that mattered was limited. Of age, but still so young. There would be time for him to learn, his grandfather said, when he thought Thorin was taking too much worry and responsibility onto his shoulders, narrower then, weaker. _Don’t waste your youth taking on an old Dwarf’s problems._

All his youth fled away in the aftermath of the battle and he inherited the responsibilities of a people. His shoulders were broader now, his arms stronger and he still struggled daily with the weight. Sometimes he broke.

Thorin lost half his family to Moria. Bifur lost his Common Speech and the simple reassurance they he would wake, work and live without pain. Thorin would not blame the toymaker if he loathed him, hated his family for leading the charge and calling upon others to follow, but he did not. It was not in Bifur’s nature to hate. With his head pounding so badly that the light of one candle was too much to bear he asked, sincerely, that Thorin unburden himself to him and he promised to listen. 

Though Thorin had been many places and seen many things, it was simple acts of kindness, like this, that still had the power to awe him. 

And so, as he helped Bifur finish his supper, he spoke. About Dáin’s arrival, his arrogance, which Thorin was forced to admit might not have been arrogance at all, simply the attitude wrought of a life lived in comfort. But there were his retainers, Nar with his cold eyes, Borr with his ever-present smirk. And others who talked over him, around him, paid him respect to his face and otherwise ignored him, the King-in-Exile. In a whisper he spoke of their plan to take his sister from him, how furious he’d been. How he rained that fury around Dáin’s head and _still_ could take no satisfaction from it.

He talked so long his voice was hoarse when he finished and his hands were shaking with repressed rage. “I’m not sad,” he said again. “I’m angry. All the time. I want things I can’t have, I hate those who have what I want. And I know I don’t deserve them, in the end.”

Bifur was still and quiet for so long that Thorin almost got up, convinced he’d fallen asleep. Then his clever fingers were moving again and he watched, closely. _Deserve is tricky. Want is worse. To think of both so much...not good._

“I can’t help it,” Thorin mumbled. “Not now, not when I have to get up every morning and look at what was meant to be mine, knowing it’s lost.”

_How long since you worked? In the forge?_

“Nearly two weeks,” Thorin answered promptly, massaging his brow and groaning. “And there’s another thing, the money - ”

 _Not money. The work. When I,_ Bifur stopped signing and his brow furrowed briefly before smoothing again. _When I came back, work made me better. My cousins also, care, love, all, but work most. To craft, you know you live, you know you wake in the morning. Truly live. Not exist only._

It was one of the main tenets that governed their lives, as children of the Maker. It was one of the mantras his kinfolk took to repeating when times were so hard they could not fathom rising to greet another day. We have our hands and our eyes. At least we can work. As long as they worked and as long as they endured, they did what their Maker intended them to do, they honored Him and their ancestors. 

It was true that Thorin felt he paid his grandsires homage more in the forging of a sword than in the signing of a treaty. His grandfather had done both, when he ruled under the Mountain. Thorin was either one or the other, the king of the pauper. Two creatures, utterly different, neither one a reflection of his true self, whatever that self was. These days Thorin had no idea what he was or what he was meant to be. He only knew that he was tired and angry and wished he wasn’t. 

“Fíli and Kíli said they worked with you today,” Thorin said, removing the wooden slats from his coat and placing them gently in Bifur’s hands. The other dwarf felt the carvings and his lips twitched up into a smile. “They had an able teacher, but I fear they weren’t apt pupils.”

 _They learn,_ Bifur signed when he handed Thorin his nephews’ handiwork back. _They are good boys. Loud, good boys._

“The best of my life,” Thorin replied shortly, his throat tightening suddenly. His, but not his, as his sister made abundantly clear the night before. A knock at the door made him look up in time to see Dís poke her head in, Fíli hoisted on her back, his golden head bowed in slumber on her shoulder.

“It’s late,” she said, then nodded to the figure on the bed. “‘Evening, Bifur. Thyra and Bombur are putting the little ones to bed, Glóin and Hervor had gone, they told me to say goodnight to you both. I thought we might leave as well.”

“Aye,” Thorin nodded, taking up the plate and rising. “It’s about time.”

Bifur caught his wrist before he left. _Think,_ he signed. _Work. Do not be so sad._

“I - ” Thorin was about to protest for the third time that he was _not_ sad, but after all the talking he had done, words felt hollow. He grasped Bifur’s hand instead and kissed his knuckles respectfully. “Work,” he repeated. “Good night.”

When he was out in the sitting room, Dís nodded at Kíli, dozing in Bombur’s armchair. “Take him?” she asked, but Thorin was already crossing the room and had the child in his arms a heartbeat later. Kíli smiled in his sleep, nuzzling his head against Thorin’s shoulder and melting into his arms. Thorin kissed the lad’s hair and followed Dís out the door into the night.

He assumed it was going to be as silent a journey back as the one to dinner was, but his sister surprised him by speaking. “I’m sorry,” she said, looking at Thorin nervously. “When I said...well, I’m sorry about a lot of things, but most of all when I said that Fíli and Kíli were mine and no one else’s.”

“You were only speaking the truth,” Thorin replied, but he did walk half a step closer to her, less conscious of keeping a distance between them. “I’m not their father.”

“You’re not,” she agreed, “but that doesn’t mean they aren’t yours. I can’t - we none of us can go it alone. We’re not meant to. And it doesn’t turn out well when we try.”

There were dozens of dwarves she might have spoken of. Their Grandfather, alone in his treasurehouse. Their father, retreating from the wasteland at Moria to wander the highways and forests of the earth, never to return. Their mother, wasting away in her bedroom, seeing no one. Or perhaps she talked about Thorin himself, closing himself off, building a wall of silence and anger and bitterness. One she was tired of scaling. 

“I love you,” Dís said, brushing her shoulder against his arm deliberately. “And I won’t ever leave you. It wasn’t fair of me to say I might, because I won’t. Ever. You have your path to take and I want to walk it with you. Just...let me. Alright?”

 _I don’t want you to share my road,_ Thorin thought, his heart heavy as a stone. _It’s dark and winding and full of sorrow. I want you to be happy._

Shifting all of Kíli’s weight into one arm, Thorin put his other arm around his sister and his sister-son on her back. Dís leaned into his embrace, relaxing when he pressed a kiss to her head. “I love you,” he replied. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Sure you do,” she said immediately. “More than that. But you’ve got me. And the lads. And our kin and kith. And that’s enough to be getting on with.”

Enough. Was it really? For now. Would it always be? 

Thorin could not say what the future held, but in that moment, with his sister at his side, his nephews close by, he had enough. Reason to rise in the morning and that, after all, was everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another one with competing POVs, but it's up! And THANK FREAKING MAHAL that Thorin finally got someone to talk to who has no horse in this political race. I'm leaving for a week on vacation, so that's the last update for this one until I get back, I hope you enjoyed it!


	19. Chapter 19

Drinking with Nori was not an activity Dwalin wanted to indulge in to the point where it became a habit, but he once again found himself at Bildr’s, footing the bill. Safer that way, not only because it meant he could cut the lad off when he’d had too much, but he also didn’t run the risk of being caught in the company of one who paid for his meals with counterfeit coins. 

There was the question of why Dwalin had forsaken all decent company that evening, but it was reasonably answered: Because he could not abide the idea of being around anyone who did not objectively deserve a good hard punch in the teeth. At least if Nori got his dander up, he’d deserve what came to him should the finely frayed threads of Dwalin’s temper finally snap. He’d nearly taken Glóin’s head off earlier in the afternoon for nothing more offensive than clarifying supper plans. It was neither of their faults, really, his cousin caught him at a bad time; Dwalin had just come from seeing Dís. 

He had to know. Had to ask. And so he had, of course he had, with his reputation for being bold and vicious, of course he’d gone off and demanded answers. Hands shaking, heart pounding, he stood on the little lawn beside the artisans’ residents and asked Dís what she was going to do.

Her answer hadn’t given him the satisfaction he expected. Hence the drinking. Nori was just there to add insult to injury.

“I don’t see as I was doing the lad a harm, s’pose he gets himself in a tight spot some day and needs to get himself out? Bit of lock-picking, bit of knot-tying, those’re useful skills, eh?” Nori had an awful habit of elbowing Dwalin in the arm to signal that he expected him to agree with whatever foolishness he was spouting.

“Useful,” Dwalin replied, edging away from him. “For a thief.”

Nori made an absurd sound of dismay, half a snort, half a wordless exclamation. At first, Dwalin thought the lad was making a show of being drunker than he was, but after the last ten minutes of elbow-jabs and rather too much moisture leaving Nori’s mouth when he spoke, he was beginning to suspect that Irpa’s second son just couldn’t hold his grog.

“I am not a thief,” Nori protested. “Not _just_ a thief. I have many sterling qualities, want to hear them?”

“No.”

“Number one,” Nori raised two fingers, frowned at them and then pressed them together and smiled to himself as though he’d done something brilliant. “Number one - I am very sneaky. And good at sneaking - you want to know what my secret is?”

“No.”

Nori leaned up and pressed his lips directly against Dwalin’s ear, much to Dwalin’s vexation, if he leaned any further away from him, he’d fall off his stool. “You _take off your -_ wait!” Narrowing his eyes he sat back down and gave Dwalin a suspicious look. “Wait. No. I’m not telling you.”

“That’s fine.”

“Do you want to know _why_ I won’t tell you?” Nori asked eagerly.

Dwalin tried really hard not to sigh. He failed. “No,” he said, signalling to Bildr that he would like another tankard. “Just keep it to yourself.”

“Because _you_ are a guardsman,” Nori said, evolving from elbows to fingers and he poked Dwalin in the shoulder. “And could use what I tell you about my…my...my…”

“Proclivities?” Dwalin supplied, staring off into space. What was he doing here? Why hadn’t he gone to Bombur and Thyra’s with the rest of civilized society? Ah, right. Because not only was Dís guaranteed to be there and he was not so self-deluded that he thought he could see her again so soon after...well, _after_ and act totally unaffected. Besides, Balin might be there as well and he was absolutely not prepared to pass a night with him in cordial conversation.

The only reason they’d gone on so long without resorting to fisticuffs is that Balin had taken to going to bed early and rising early, while Dwalin come in late and ran most of the way to the mountain to avoid speaking to one another. They’d stopped short of dividing the flat down the center with a chalk line, but only because that would require them to admit they were being childish. 

Nori was quiet for a bit, the cogs in his mind awhirl; he seemed to be deciding whether or not Dwalin had insulted him. “Right,” he nodded after a minute’s contemplation. “Proclivities. That’s a good word, a clever word. You’re clever.”

 _My mother always said so,_ was on the tip of Dwalin’s tongue, but he bit the retort back and scrubbed a hand over his face. Why was his beer taking so long? What was he doing there in the first place?

“Did your brother kick you out as well?” Nori asked Dwalin with overbright eyes. “Or is he off putting a stop on that marriage plot? How’s that going? Haven’t been much about since I found my way to the aul homestead. Well, ‘til Dori reckoned he’d had his fill of me. Eh?”

Bildr’s eldest approached them with two mugs, but Dwalin took one, not too subtly letting the boy know that Nori was cut off for the night. Nori did not seem to notice or care and was spinning his half-full mug on the tabletop. 

“I _told_ you that you ought to have got Dís up,” Nori continued, having forgotten that he asked Dwalin a question. “Wouldn’t have been nearly so cross if you let her know from the start. She’s not some fainting woman of Man, you know, she can hold her own, that one.”

“I know,” Dwalin replied glumly, remembering the dark places where the sweat stained her wash-bleached green tunic to the emerald it had been when it was new. Her hair was tumbling in her face, sticking to her forehead, made him think of things that didn’t bear thinking on. The muscles of her shoulders and arms tensing under his hand, forge strength wasted on washing. The feel of her mouth on his, so fast, so fleeting that the memory did him more harm than it did good.

Dwalin swallowed down half the contents of his mug in one gulp and tried to forget.

“Not that she’d run off and marry Mister Iron Hills anyway,” Nori said knowingly. “Not when she’s had the best dwarf who ever walked beneath the earth. Not when she’s in love with you.”

It all happened in a blur. Money was left on the table, probably too much, but Dwalin didn’t pay that any mind. He grabbed Nori by the scruff of the neck and led him outside, despite the lad’s squawking and struggling. He might have been able to pick locks and untie ropes, but his clumsy fingers were no match for Dwalin’s firm grip. 

“What?” he protested loudly. “I wasn’t done with my drink!”

“You’ve had enough,” Dwalin growled, hauling him through the streets in the direction of his mother’s house. “I’m taking you home.”

“Can’t go home,” Nori slurred pitifully. “Not if Dori’s out and about, we’ll have to go in the back door - we’ve got a back door, shameful, eh?”

“I’ll deliver you to the front,” Dwalin told him, his grip tightening. “You and Dori can work it out.”

“What’s got you so vexed so sudden?” Nori asked and in the fog of inebriation, a spark of light appeared. “‘Cos of what I said about you and Dís? Oh, come _on_ , everyone knows - you two want to be on the up-and-up, traditional, just wring your hearts out over each other, that’s your business, but you’re not _fooling_ anyone - ”

Dwalin stopped. Took a breath. Held it. And just as it had only a few nights before, his hand found its way around Nori’s throat and effectively cut off his nattering. The toes of Nori’s boots were the only bit of him touching the ground when Dwalin lifted him up to look him in the eye. “I’m going to say this once. Don’t make me say it again. Shut. Up.”

Nori nodded hastily and Dwalin’s grip loosened, but he did not release him and the walked the rest of the way to Irpa’s in silence. Dori met them at the door and his expression hardened immediately when he saw his brother being led home by the guardsman. 

“No,” Dori shook his head and made to shut the door in both their faces, but Dwalin stopped it with his boot and all but threw Nori at his brother. It showed that, despite what Dori might have said when he cast him out in the the night earlier, he still had a jot of fraternal affection for Nori. Caught him before he hit the floor, anyway.

“That’s your responsibility for the evening,” Dwalin said sternly, ignoring the way Dori was frowning up at him, opening his mouth ready to argue. “Until your little brother gets a better head for ale, he ought to find another way to drown his sorrows.”

“I don’t have sorrows!” Nori declared, pushing himself upright off Dori’s shoulder. 

Dori drew his dressing gown tighter around him and scolded, “Hush! You’ll wake half the village for bellowing! You’ll wake _Ori_ and I’ll - ”

“Ori’s asleep,” Irpa said from the stairwell, candle in hand. Her hair and beard were unbound and she was dressed for bed, but she was not as annoyed as Dori was by the interruption. “This is becoming a bad habit, isn’t it, Dwalin? Turning up with one of my boys in tow, goodness knows it’ll be Dori next.”

“I _never_ ,” Dori began, but his mother cut him off again with an indulgent smile.

“There’s a first time for everything,” Irpa said, situating herself underneath Nori’s arm to prop him up and lead him to a bedroom. “I’d offer you tea, Dwalin dear, but it is rather late, I’m sure you have a busy day ahead of you. You’ll have to favor us some other time.”

It was incredible how Irpa could be so poised in the midst of minor chaos. Then again, Dwalin thought, watching her lead Nori up the stairs, she’d had a lot of practice with chaos. Dori remained in the sitting room, glaring at him. 

“Before you go,” he said testily. “Is there any news regarding that little particular I inquired about last week? Either way?” 

Dwalin came very close to slamming Dori’s head into the wall. Acting with admirable restraint, he clenched his hands into fists and grit his teeth so hard his jaw ached. Sensing that perhaps the question had been ill-timed, Dori stepped back, worrying the knot in his robe.

“Don’t pack your looms,” Dwalin said shortly. “As no one’s going anywhere.”

“Ah,” Dori said, unmistakable relief in his voice. “Good. Excellent, in fact. And I’m sure our feelings are one on this subject.”

If one more person presumed to know anything more about his _feelings_ before the night was over, Dwalin was going to break their neck. In lieu of such extreme measures, he settled for slamming the door on his way out. 

Although Dori’s kin took themselves to bed somewhat early, he knew that supper at Bombur and Thyra’s home would still be well underway. Distantly, he hoped Thorin had gone, the diversion would do him good. It was impossible to be angry with half a dozen dwarflings crawling all over you, demanding their full attention, trying to draw you into their games. Seeing Fíli and Kíli playing with their friends after that awful scare would do his heart good, if nothing else.

Dwalin thought there was little else to be done about his own heart, save putting it to bed. Counting on Balin being among the suppertime revelers, he changed his habit and hied back to the two rooms he shared with his brother. Once Dwalin was inside he threw his coat off, letting it land where it would. 

The slight gust of wind made the candle at his brother’s bedside gutter and the flickering drew Dwalin’s eye as his heart sank into his bowels. It seemed Balin hadn’t responded favorably to the dinner invitation after all.

“Shite,” Dwalin said, the first word he’d spoken to his brother in almost a week. What was he supposed to do now? Stand his ground, or maybe just put himself to bed while Balin pretended he didn’t exist. 

The plan seemed sound to Dwalin, but as he was bending to pick up his coat, the bedframe across the room from him creaked and he heard his brother say, very deliberately, “I’m sorry.”

Dwalin froze, still bent toward the floor. “What?”

Balin sighed and rubbed at his eyes irritably. “For what I said to you the other night. It was cruel. I was angry, and I was cruel, it had nothing to do with you and I’m sorry.”

Dwalin didn’t understand. And so he asked again, “What?”

“Are you drunk?” There wasn’t any censure in Balin’s tone, it was a simple question, but Dwalin bristled nevertheless.

“No,” he said and he wasn’t, just confused because his brother seemed to have lost his wits. He struck Dwalin to the heart over those things which mattered most to him, yet his words had nothing to do with Dwalin himself and therefore he ought to forgive him? “Only I can’t work out your meaning. Are you truly sorry for insulting me or are you sorry you’ve lost your game of thrones? Dís won’t have him.”

“I know,” Balin nodded, but did not seem grieved about it. “I’ve spoken to her already.”

“When?” Dwalin demanded, feeling some of the blood rise to his face. _“When?”_

After he’d gone and pleaded with her not to go? After she’d said she wouldn’t have him, after she told him to stop _asking_ though he’d never asked once in his life and never would. When she said love wasn’t enough to make a marriage? When she said she thought he could never make her happy? What could she have told Balin, after such a scene?

“This afternoon,” he said, but Dwalin’s face remained impassive for he quickly added, “early. Noontime. You were right. She bears him a grudge, too old and hard to break.”

Was that meant to be a compliment? ‘You were right.’ Was Dwalin meant to find solace in that, being right? Would Balin, if their places were reversed? Ah, but that was a question that didn’t bear thinking about; of course he would. 

“She's knows to respect the dead,” Dwalin grunted, turning away from Balin to remove his outer things and go to bed. “She’s a good lass.”

Balin nodded gravely, setting the book he had been reading on his bedside table, rather too close to the candle and its dripping wax. “Unlike some?”

Snorting, Dwalin nodded his head, glancing over at his brother against his better judgment, “Aye, unlike some I could name - ach, what’re you doing?” 

Little things like that could send him straight back to Erebor. A scabbard thrown carelessly before an entryway where anyone might fall on it. The smell of cinnamon and cloves wafting up from a cup of mulled cider on Durin's Day. The taste of oranges, such a rare pleasure these days, to be savored. The gut-clenching sound of two voices, one low and gruff, the other high and lilting joined in laughter, he always had to stop himself turning and looking because he knew it could _not_ be them. A book, left abandoned by a candle, wax spattering on the cover. Such a bother to clean.

Dwalin snatched the volume from the bedside and deposited in his brother’s lap unceremoniously. Balin gave him an amused look, but Dwalin only felt more uncomfortable, the thought, _What would Uncle Haldr say?_ dying in his throat before he gave voice to it.

Was their brother so determined to shake off the influence of those who came before that he would disregard all their strictures? Let the dead be forgotten, he said, all their teachings and strictures with them. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t how they’d been raised. 

Balin sighed again and ran his hand over the cover of the book. Not one rescued from Erebor. They’d taken nothing from Erebor save the clothes on their backs and the swords at their sides. “Forgive me,” he said, to the dusty leather. “I wasn’t thinking.”

Dwalin stood and stared at him a long time. His brother’s hair was white, but he wasn’t old. Sometimes Dwalin forgot just how young he was - how young they _all_ were. 

“I don’t understand you,” he shook his head, turning down the blankets on his own bed, retreating to the corner. 

“Don’t you?” Balin asked, snuffing his candle and rolling onto his side, back to Dwalin. “I shouldn’t wonder. Of the two of us, you’ve always had the sweeter nature.”

Dwalin made no response, but Balin talked into the darkness, his voice even and quiet. “There isn’t much to understand, really. We’re all...lost, disappointed creatures. Some bear it better than others. Dís bears it remarkably. She smiles, she works, she loves. I don’t blame you for setting your heart on her. I know you always think words said in anger are the absolute truth. They’re not. I also know you don’t believe me, so let me go on.”

It was true, Dwalin had been just about to protest that Balin could not scour away bad feelings by claiming he hadn’t been speaking his heart that night, but he kept his mouth shut. The argument had gone on long enough and Dwalin was, for once in his life, tired of fighting.

“It’s as I said, Dís bears it well,” Balin continued in that same dull voice. “So do you, as a matter of fact. We all marked ourselves in mourning, we all go to temple on the Days of Remembrance and we say our prayers to the honored dead. And for some, that is enough, they shake off their grief, they carry on. Because we must. Others...for others it festers. The grief turns to gall, the tears to bitterness, the despair to anger.”

“You’re talking about Thorin,” Dwalin interrupted quietly.

Balin took a breath. Held it for a count of ten. Then let it out. 

“I am talking about myself,” he concluded and Dwalin rolled onto his side, squinting at Balin’s back in the dark. “I said you and Thorin dwell too much in the past, but I’m no better. Worse, in fact. I speak as though I have some authority, as though I know everything. The truth is I know nothing. Nothing more than anyone else.”

After that revelation, Balin was quiet for so long Dwalin thought he’d fallen asleep. He wished he had, then he wouldn’t feel the awful pressure in his mind that told him to give comfort. Dwalin resisted that urge with all his might. Another part of himself shouted that Balin did not _deserve_ comfort after what he’d said, what he’d done. That he was only sore he’d come out the loser in a battle of wits. That he deserved to spend the night wallowing in misery.

But the stronger part of himself was the more compassionate than that, perhaps more naive, but it had always been in Dwalin’s nature to protect the ones he loved. From dangers from without and trials from within, he made no distinction. 

Throwing off his blankets, he crossed the room and lay a hesitant hand on his elder brother’s shoulders. One of Balin’s hands found it immediately and settled on top, tense, ready to be shaken off.

“You can be a - I was going to say ‘bastard,’” Dwalin began, lips quirking slightly upward, but his expression smoothed itself back to solemnity ere long. “Without dragging our parents into it, you can be an arse, sometimes, and cruel. But. I accept your apology.”

Balin squeezed his hand briefly, with a softly spoken, “Thank you,” and Dwalin got back into his own bed. He was about to drift off when Balin asked him, “If the situation had not resolved itself so favorable, would I still have your forgiveness?”

Now it was Dwalin’s turn to lapse into a long silence. He didn't like to dwell on what-ifs. Thorin did, constantly, and it only increased his melancholy. If a lesson couldn't be learned from looking over past mistakes, Dwalin thought it was best to put it out of one's mind. Even battles gone terribly wrong, strategy could only account for so much. Dumb luck and individual skill had to be counted on when lives were on the line. There were comrades who had fallen beside him who might have pulled through if Dwalin was a little faster, if a warg moved left instead of right, if the tip of an arrow landed one inch higher or lower. Yet what was done was done and there was no use tearing his beard over things he could not change. 

“It worked out,” he said at last. “It’s all come to naught now, even if Dáin says his bit, we know she’ll refuse. So I forgive you. And that’s that.”

Pulling the blankets over his head, Dwalin heard Balin's call of, "Good night, brother," but he made no reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brothers, eh?


	20. Chapter 20

Dís rubbed a few drops of her clove-and-orange scented hair oil into her scalp as she twisted her hair up into coils that would hold at least until the end of the afternoon. She fastened the clasps on her second-best coat and donned her sapphire necklace again. There was more than one way to arm oneself and if she caught any one of the fine lords and ladies sniggering at her behind their hands, she’d happily challenge them to a round of fisticuffs.

Bare to the waist with one’s fists as one’s weapons, who was to say which Dwarf was the more finely turned out?

Thorin was waiting for her outside her bedroom door, his hair mostly unbound and his boots caked three inches in mud; he’d walked Fíli and Kíli to their usual playground behind the shops and it rained the night before. “You look very nice,” he said as Dís bent to lace up her boots.

“You don’t,” she remarked, then grinned wickedly up at him. Thorin smirked back down at her; when his sister was teasing him about looking untidy it was a true sign all was well between them. “I wonder what Ama would say.”

“You know very well what Ama would say,” Thorin replied, tossing his sister her thick black leather belt, knives securely strapped in. “That I was very badly turned out, did no credit to her as a mother and that if I caught my hair on fire it was no one’s fault but mine own. Do you remember how she used to haunt our father until he would agree to have his hair and beard dressed for occasions of court?”

Dís shook her head as they made to walk outside, “Not really - tell me about it.”

Thorin was in the middle of recounting a particularly funny story that involved his father trying to read and give his signature to paperwork whilst having his hair braided in addition to bouncing a particularly fretfrul Frerin on his knee while at the same time bellowing at Thorin to get dressed - his shouting probably only contributed to Frerin’s unhappiness - when they were intercepted by Balin and Dwalin coming down the roadway.

“A smile!” Balin announced approvingly when he saw Thorin. “That’s quite a change, I’d call it an improvement myself.”

“Don’t expect it to last,” Thorin replied, casting his eyes ominously toward the peak that was their destination.

“Well, what’s the occasion?” Balin replied. “Your Name Day’s still four years off, but it must be something momentous indeed to crack the stony countenance of Thorin Oakenshield.”

Thorin swatted at Balin’s shoulder in faux annoyance. “Don’t remind me how soon my name-day’s coming. I’ll be a hundred and fifty the one after next and _that’s_ enough to set any self-respecting dwarrow to frowning.”

“A hundred and fifty isn’t so bad,” Balin remarked, with an exaggerated sniff of indignation.

“Ah, right,” Thorin nodded. “You’ve passed it...how many years ago was that?”

“Several. We’re going to leave it at ‘several.’”

Thorin and Balin fell into step and continued to banter about their respective ages as they trod a path through town. Dís and Dwalin walked along behind them, together, but not speaking until Dwalin inclined his head to Dís’s ear and muttered, _“He’s_ in fine form. What enchantment have you worked on him, lass? Or is he just drunk?”

Some of the tension between them ebbed away and Dís snorted as she gratefully fell into their old patterns of conversation, “Drunk! There’s an idea. Nah, I don’t _think_ so, ‘less he’s got some stores of whiskey hidden under his bed - could be, we stuffed half the house under there when company came to call. He did have a talk with Bifur last night.”

“Good old Bifur,” Dwalin remarked approvingly. He was not one to become enamored of new acquaintances immediately, in all the years they had been settled in the Ered Luin Dís could count the number of dwarves that worked their way into Dwalin’s favor on one hand (two of them were Kíli and Fíli, who scarcely counted), but he liked Bifur. Everyone liked Bifur, it was impossible to find him anything but extraordinary.

“Good old Bifur,” Dís echoed. She glanced over at Dwalin, then looked away again. She knew him so well that she would notice every line of tension in his shoulders and arms, she knew when he was holding his face still, not letting anything be shown on that stony countenance. In those moment she could almost believe the tales of Dwalin the Fearsome, the Terror from the East.

Almost. She let herself be totally taken in if she didn’t have to look into his eyes.

“There’s a present for you, waiting back up the house,” Dís said, smiling a little despite herself. “Kíli did a carving at Bombur and Thyra’s last evening - well, to be honest, I think he did some tracing and Bifur was the one who did the carving. But he’s insisting you have it. It’s a sword, just so you know beforehand. I could ‘accidentally’ use it for kindling, if you’d rather not be bothered.”

Dwalin smirked and shook his head, “Nah, I’ll take it. A sword, eh? I’ll just keep that in mind so I don’t insult the wee lad for guessing.”

“Ah, Kíli’s got a thick skin. Glóin spent about five minutes guessing, closest he came was ‘fish.’ Kíli couldn’t stop laughing about it, he thought Glóin was trying to be funny.”

Chuckling lowly, Dwalin shook his head, “Tricky thing about Glóin; he’s funniest when he’s not trying to be - ”

“Careful what you say,” a peeved voice with an Eastern burr sounded behind them. “The very stones have ears.”

“Glóin!” Dís exclaimed with a broad smile. “What are you doing here? Haven’t you got work?”

“Begged off,” he shrugged. He too was dressed well and took special care with his beard. “Family matters, told ‘em. Considering who the family is, they were only too happy to oblige me, ought to have done so weeks ago, but that’s my fault.”

“Are we going to be set upon by young folk whose nuptials are being set back?” Dwalin asked, looking over his shoulder. “You should have warned me, I’d have brought my warhammer.”

Glóin made a dismissive gesture with his left hand, hooking his right thumb into his belt, “They’ve waited the better part of a year, they can wait a day more - contracts are mostly signed, all they’re wanting is a juzrâl and I’ll be damned if I’m taking up a second craft.”

“Can you imagine!” Dís hooted as the gate of the central peak loomed ever closer. “Glóin as a cantor, - oh, or stoking the offertory fires, barking at the penitents who come up with their sacrifices, checking them over, telling them the Maker won’t breathe smoke if they don’t line them up _just_ so - ”

Punching his younger cousin hard on the arm, Glóin leveled her with a mild glare, “I come to do you folk a favor and I get laughed at. I ought to have stayed at my desk, if this is all the thanks I get for - ”

“Favor?” Dwalin raised an incredulous eyebrow. “What favor? There’s hot air enough in there without you adding coal to the fire.”

“Me!” Glóin exclaimed, startling a sleepy-looking guardswoman into attention as he passed by. “That’s a fine good morning! After your brother - ”

 _“My_ brother?” Dís interrupted him, then gestured toward Dwalin. “Or _his_ brother?”

“You need to speak more directly, little cousin,” Dwalin advised, patting Glóin condescendingly on the head. “None of this quiet, circling around the matter that you do. We’ve _both_ got brothers, after all.”

“Right, then, you don’t know,” Glóin glared at them. “If you did, you’d not be in a teasing mood - Thorin accosted Dáin yesterday and he - ”

But it seemed Glóin was destined not to finish a sentence that day, for who should approach them from across the room but the very dwarf about whom he had been speaking.

“Glóin!” Dáin hailed him warmly. “What rock did you crawl out of? I haven’t seen hide nor hair of you since we arrived, I was starting to think you’d gone into hiding.”

“If I was of a mind to,” Glóin remarked after the two shared a brief embrace, “I can think of no better place for it than the law offices of the Ered Luin. Even without meaning to, one can find oneself buried ‘neath an avalanche of paperwork. I’ve been working these weeks, but I managed to steal some time away.”

“Ah!” Something flickered in Dáin’s face, apprehension and not a little chagrin. His bright blue eyes slid over to Thorin who had his back to him, in conference with Balin. Dáin licked his lips and shifted his weight onto his right leg, “Well. I’m glad to see you - glad they could spare you, I mean.”

“Springtime’s a busy time,” Glóin rolled his eyes. “Marriages. Now, if folk were sensible, they’d wait ‘til fall and throw a real fete.”

“That’s not what you did,” Dís reminded him. Turning to Dáin she went on, _”This_ one was wed before the first thaw. Was the ink dry on the contract, yet when you and Hervor were married, Glóin? I could’ve sworn I saw it shining.”

“You must’ve been imagining things,” Glóin drew himself up imperiously. “The first twenty pages were dry as bone. I can’t speak to the last fifty, but all was signed and sealed.”

“Wise,” Dwalin commented. “It’ll be impossible for her to be rid of you if she can’t even get the pages unstuck. By design, was it?”

“I have no comment on the matter.”

Dáin chortled, “And _that_ right there is why I’ve never thought to court anyone.”

Dís and Dwalin stiffened immediately, then looked one another full in the face for the first time that morning. Even Balin and Thorin stopped their conversation long enough to turn toward Dáin. A hush went over their little group, but Glóin was the first to find his tongue. Almost naturally he cleared his throat and said, “Is that...is that right? Too - ah - nervy about getting…stuck. Are you?”

“Oh, not me,” Dáin confided easily. “I’d not want the one I set my heart on being stuck with _me._ It’s fine for some to come and go, but if I wed it’d be ‘til death and beyond. I think...well, it’s nice, isn’t it? To have someone waiting for you, but...my mother loved my father very much, you know. Broke her heart when he died, its been patched some, in the years since, but…”

Dáin met Dís’s gaze a little nervously. She stared back, but he colored a bit above his beard and addressed his remarks to the floor. “Never know what’ll come, do we? Orcs or goblins or...glory in combat’s all well and good, but what about those left behind? I’d hate to leave a soul behind on this earth with only a song to remember me by.”

All was silence for a long minute, no one really knew what to say. Then Balin, with a small, knowing smile, asked Dáin, “What’re they called?”

The flush on Dáin’s cheeks deepened. “Svana. Family settled the Iron Hills two generations back, Stiffbeard on the father’s side, but the mother’s a Longbeard born and bred. Bonny lass, works in glass, mostly. I got to know her when one of the windows in the main gallery blew out after a bad hail storm. Beautiful. When the sun shines through the whole place glows with colored light.”

There was a dreamy sort of look that stole over Dáin’s face. It was clear that he wasn’t seeing the fine stone walls of the Broadbeam stronghold, but was far away, surrounded by shimmering light. As one, the exiles of Erebor seemed to let out a relieved sigh. The spell around Dáin broke when Thorin approached him, hands spread in a gesture of apology.

“Could I have a word with you? Privately,” he asked and Dáin nodded.

Inclining his head the Lord of the Iron Hills said, “I was about to ask you the same thing, come, follow me, we can talk over - ”

 _“There_ you are,” Nar said, sweeping forward with a harried, anxious look on his face, the very picture of a parent whose child had gotten lost in the marketplace. Borr was walking a few paces behind him and then fell back a few paces more when he saw Dwalin towering over them all. Nar paid his son no mind, only bowed low when he stood before Dís. “My Lady. I hope you are well.”

“Fine,” Dís replied, inclining her head a little uncertainly. “And yourself?”

Nar did not appear to have heard her.

“My Lord,” he turned his attention to Dáin. “Have you requested a private audience with her ladyship?”

“Er, no,” Dáin replied warily, but brightened as he went on. “Thorin just asked me to have a word, so I don’t think that’s really - ”

“Has he?” Nar glared at Thorin with open contempt. “I cannot imagine that _he_ has anything to say to you worth hearing.”

Dwalin was in front of him a heartbeat later. “Mind your tongue,” he growled. “And speak with more respect.”

“What measure of respect ought to be afforded one who has none?” Nar snapped back, unafraid. “You forget yourselves - _he_ forgets himself. King Under the Mountain is _nothing_ to one who has _nothing.”_

“Nar!” Dáin hissed, outraged. It was fortunate that he spoke when he did, for Dalin’s fists were clenched and seemed poised to add a few more marks to the old wounds that twisted Nar’s face. “What did I say last night? I bear no grudge and neither should you!”

“If I could, my Lord?”

Yet another had joined the conversation. Lothar stood at Dáin’s back, rolling his shoulders to stand at attention. In doing so he drew the assembled dwarves’ eyes to him - and more importantly, to the crowd of nobles that were watching them argue with rapt attention. “As you both represent Clan Longbeard, a Clan I have pledged my loyalty and my axe to, I thought I’d remind you this isn’t the best showing for _either_ of your kingdoms.”

Mercifully the bells tolled the hour and neither side could have argued with the other if they tried for the assemblage of dwarves were off to their respective halls and chambers to begin the trade talks.

Glóin proved himself a very useful addition to the small contingent from Erebor. Squashed between Balin and Dís, he spoke up and made all the bombastic pronouncements that Thorin clearly wished to. Noble, but not the King, it was easier by far for other lords to shout him down without insulting the very face of the Mountain itself - or provoking Dwalin’s wrath, which was likely foremost on their minds.

Rather than bite his tongue in furious silence, Thorin’s lips quirked upward every time his cousin gave voice to what he himself was thinking. Then, when he did speak, it was in a more measured voice and even temper than was his custom in the past. Of course, when a topic was touched upon that left all the dwarrows around the table equally frustrated, everyone’s tempers burned hot and Thorin found himself in good company.

“Every autumn it’s the same!” an Ironfist master of customs and duties complained. “We send our merchants into the outlying valleys and every year it’s the same, ‘The Men tried to shortchange us, the tarriffs are too high, accounting for the stubbornness of Men! Stubbornness of _Men_ , says I? And what of your steady hearts? And if they agree to sell for the asking price, then I’m up to my neck in craftsmen coming, demanding to know why the crown cheapens their goods!”

“They agree to _sell?”_ A Stonefoot grand vizier asked incredulously. “And here I thought the Ironfists were the most hard-headed of dwarrows! Sounds like you’ve got hearts of lead, not steel!”

“Steel shatters,” the customs master retorted. “And so would our treasury if we refused to sell _nothing_ to anyone. Do you propose we take up the plow and turn our forges to fields?”

A general shudder went around the table at that notion.

“What I find helps,” Dáin offered, “is getting the lords of Men on your side - ”

“Ha!” Abdlan, a Blacklock King, laughed derisively. “Fat chance, I say. Sign all the trade agreements and peace treaties you want, but at the end of the day, it’s us against _them_ and don’t try to tell me otherwise, youngblood. I’ve had dealings with Men for a century longer than you’ve been alive, I know the way their minds work.”

“I’d never think to question your experience, sir,” Dáin inclined his head respectfully. “But I believe my point still stands. If Men believe their own lords will take their side, then our merchants have quite the uphill battle ahead of them. If, however, their lords know that they will only receive the work of our hands if they heed our demands they’ll turn a deaf ear when their people get to whinging about our prices.”

“You're taking their money; you must pay them some notice,” Thorin spoke up, directing his inquiry to Abdlan. “How much do your merchants charge? For...say, a single cutlass. For felling cane.”

It took Abdlan a moment to work out the calculations, but at last he said, “One sterling and nine shillings - if we’re talking Western currency.”

“That’ll do,” Thorin replied, his steely gaze never wavering from the other dwarf's eyes. “They can get the same from their own craftsmen for fifteen shillings, is what I hear along the trade routes.”

Abdlan scoffed, “Aye, I’m sure they can. And when the handle breaks in ten years or the blade rusts away in twenty? They’ll be wishing they paid the higher price for better work.”

“Does a Man who farms such a crop as that need a blade to last him twenty years?” Thorin asked bluntly. “Does he think to pass his tools on to his children? Or is he thinking only that he must buy a cutlass to work that he might eat that night and he’ll take the cheaper option that will last until his arms give out.?”

“I don’t know a thing about it,” Abdlan replied flatly. “How far South have you traveled, lad? You wouldn’t catch me in those fields under that sun for all the diamonds under the earth.”

“How are the laborers paid?” Dís asked, folding her arms and looking at Abdlan frankly. The old dwarf seemed to become distinctly uncomfortable as he fussed with the collar of his robes idly.

“Not well,” he said after a long pause. “I don’t go down there, if I can help it. Turns the stomach. Those Men out there all day long, laboring for a pittance, nothing to show for it that can be called their own...their ways are not our ways, but it seems to me no way to live. And they don't - Truth be told, it’s why I don’t much like Lord Dáin’s suggestion. We’re neighboring kingdoms, there’s a peace between us, but I don’t hold with the ways of that Lord of Men. I say here he’s a tyrant from a line of tyrants.”

“But don’t you think,” Dáin interjected, glancing over at Thorin, “that it would be to your benefit - not to mention the subjects of the neighboring kingdom - for your craftsmen to - ”

“Undervalue their crafts?” Abdlan interrupted. The troubled expression slid off his face, replaced by an indignant scowl. “I don’t think so. I might pity those Men, but I won’t see my people suffering alongside them.”

“I don’t mean that, sir,” Dáin raised both hands suplicatingly. “I mean to say that they ought to produce what the laboring Men can afford. If you want to continue trade without the same endless complaining year in and year out.”

Abdlan still looked distinctly disgruntled, “I won’t charge my smithies to change their work for the sakes of Men.”

“Then I wonder that you bid your merchants sell to them,” Thorin stated coolly. “Do they sow their fields to suit the palates of dwarves?”

Seated nearest Abdlan, Dís would later swear she heard his teeth grinding. “Some may,” he managed.

“Well, then,” Thorin said, leaning back in his chair with folded arms, as though the matter was quite settled. “Neither myself nor my cousin are suggesting you ask your people to devalue their work. Only change the form to suit those who you would do business with.”

“A point well taken,” the grand vizier acknowledged. “A worthy showing from Clan Longbeard, I must say. And something to mull over while we eat - was that the luncheon bell?”

It was not, but none objected breaking up the meeting a few minutes early.

As the Clan heads and their courtiers drifted away, some offering hearty pats on the back and shoulders to Dáin and Thorin, others not, the two remained seated at the table, their fellows milling only a few seats away.

“Thanks for that,” Dáin offered quietly. “For the support, I mean. Everyone’s favorite dismissal of late has been ‘youngblood.’”

“You were right,” Thorin said, staring into middle distance. “And your words worth listening to, young or not.”

“Even so,” Dáin replied, then, leaning a little closer to Thorin added, “I was going to speak to your sister first - cowardly, I know, but if you didn’t want to have anything to do with me after yesterday, I wasn’t about to force you into conversation.”

“Right,” Thorin passed a hand over his face and sighed. “About that. I apologize for what I said and the manner in which I said it. You were blameless - ”

“All due respected,” Dáin smiled, “but I was not. The fact that I did not realize I insulted you does not lessen the sting of the insult. And...I haven’t much experience of the world outside my own halls.”

“You have experience, more than many,” Thorin replied uneasily.

“And less than others.” Dáin had an open, honest face. He concealed nothing, where Thorin was drawn tight into himself like a bowstring. “Will you accept my apology and forgive my blunder?”

It was difficult to look into Dáin’s eyes, so painfully earnest, so very blue. So very much like one lost and gone forever. “I do,” Thorin replied after a beat, offering his hand. “If you will accept mine in turn.”

Dáin grinned, quick and cheerful, taking Thorin’s offered hand and pulling him into an embrace. The contact was not entirely wanted, but Thorin returned the gesture, however stiffly. “Already forgiven! It’s what I was telling Nar last night - he took it harder than I did, but he always has done - ”

“My lord.”

Like a cursed creature from mythology, whose name was a conjuring spell, Nar came as if summoned. “A word.”

It was very clearly a demand, not a request. Nar’s hands, usually so steady, were clenching and unclenching in stress. Thorin could only guess at the cause, but he did spy Balin out of the corner of his eye, smiling rather smugly.

Dáin smiled at his advisor and said, “All friends and kinsmen again, Nar. I told you it was nothing to get upset about, words exchanged in thoughtlessness and anger, sparks off an anvil, in the end.”

“Be that as it may,” Nar replied, sparing not a glance at Thorin. “I would speak to you.”

“Surely anything you have to say to me you can say in front of Thorin,” Dáin replied evenly. “Out with it, don’t keep me in suspense.”

“I think,” Thorin remarked carefully, as he rose from his place at the table, “that Lord Nar’s words are not for me, but for my sister.”

“Dís?” Dáin asked, looking up at Nar in confusion. “What about her? I thought you _liked_ her, you said she’s got a good head on her shoulders - and before you get worried, she’s shown me every possible kindness, even _after_ Loni and Onar made fools of us all. They’re still working as stableboys, are they not?”

Nar’s look of fury deepened and Thorin took that as his cue to rise and join his kinsmen for their meal. “Excuse me,” he said as he left the two alone before the long council table.

“What is this about?” Dáin asked, getting to his feet and surveying Nar frankly. “Am I missing something?”

Nar’s eyes were not on Dáin, but locked instead upon Thorin’s retreating back.

“Nar!” Dáin spoke sharply to get his attention. ”What _is_ it?”

“Those...those _wanderers,”_ Nar hissed the word as though it was an insult, “mean to make a fool of me. They’ve been spreading rumors about you, unfounded.”

“What? What rumors?”

“That you have…taken to courting,” he said stiffly. “Without consulting me.”

The chuckle, slightly taken-aback, but a chuckle regardless, was all the response Nar got for his outrage and it was clearly not the response he had been hoping for. “I’d call it embellishment, they were probably teasing,” he rolled his eyes a little. “Rekindling this morning’s conversation, no harm done. Honestly, you’d probably like them if you weren’t so determined to find fault with them.”

 _“What?_ conversation?” Nar said, but Dáin held up his hand and shook his head.

“No, I want to know what it is about Dís that has you so riled? What did Thorin mean?”

Bristling, Nar said, “I hoped to speak with you about it - privately, without all the vitriol and gall that brother likes to spew. He’ll have poisoned her against it, no doubt, her and all her kin.”

Dáin lay a restraining hand on Nar’s arm and looked at him with wide, confused eyes, “Poisoned them against what?”

“An alliance,” Nar said, speaking not to Dáin himself, but a space just over his right shoulder. “Between our kingdoms. A marriage.”

Dáin dropped his hand abruptly. “A _marriage?”_ he repeated in disbelief. “What? Are you joking? You must be joking, a marriage between Dís and myself? Nar, she’s a _widow.”_

“A widow of a low-born miner of another Clan is not a true widow,” Nar declared harshly, pacing away from his lord a few steps, then rounding back on him again. “Who knows if they were even married? You know the way of it among the common folk. Have you seen the contract?”

“No, I haven’t, I haven’t _asked_ to see the contract because it is absolutely none of my business - nor _yours_ ,” Dáin snapped, running both hands through his hair in agitation. “And don’t you dare ask! What a thing to say!”

“You’re so _young!”_ Nar shouted the word like it was an oath. “Of course it’s my business - our business - _your_ business! If the Lady Sigdís birthed some bastard children off a commoner, how does that bode for the throne of Erebor? Contracts are contracts, but ink is not _blood._ Who can say what her partner’s true lineage was? If there is doubt, then Thorin’s heirs are in question. And if Thorin has no heirs then to whom is the throne of Erebor passed? _Think,_ boy!”

Dáin’s jaw slackened and he shook his head in automatic refusal, “No. No, I won’t hear that kind of talk, that is _treason,_ Nar. If - _if_ that worm dies and Mountain is regained, _Thorin_ is its true king. And his nephews are his heirs. Don’t tell me that you would deny them all for ambition’s sake. Not over kin. Not over fealty. I know you better than that, you’re a better soul than that by far.”

“Which is why I say form an alliance!” Nar insisted. “Marry the Lady Sigdís, produce proper heirs. You know my reservations about that line. Instability, writ all over their history. This is the chance to bring the Clan together again. To repair what has been torn asunder, to share the wealth amongst us all, not leave it divided in neighboring ranges!”

“You have it all worked out,” Dáin said wonderingly. “All planned neatly there, in your mind. Your own...chess game. But we’re not pieces of carven stone, Nar. What if she refuses? What if _I_ refuse?”

The scarred dwarf went still and his ruddy face turned white as marble. “Then their rumors are true?” he asked. “You have another bride in mind.”

“It doesn’t matter whether I do or don’t!” Dáin exclaimed. “This is _my life_ I know I was a child when the seat of the Iron Hills came to me. Unprepared and you were...you helped me when my father could not. And I am grateful for that, believe me, Nar, I am grateful, but you must not treat me as if I am that child still.”

“I promised your father,” Nar said. “The last duty he ever gave me. ‘Look after my son,’ he said. ‘My only son.’”

“You have,” Dáin reached out impulsively and grasped Nar’s right hand in both of his. “You _have_. You have served him well and served me well and I am grateful for it. But that is all I ask for. Your service, your guidance. Not your control.”

“Excuse me.” Lothar’s deep tones echoed in the deep silence of the halls. “Your voices were carrying. And everyone’s wondering where you’ve got to.”

Dáin dropped Nar’s hand and walked toward Lothar with deliberate steps. “We were just leaving. Weren’t we?”

“Aye, sir,” Nar replied faintly. He took a deep breath and when he raised his face to look at Dáin, his expression was unreadable. “As you wish.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay folks, my knowledge of geography is, as I mentioned, a bit shite. But for the sake of argument, let's all pretend that the Blacklock Clan has a settlement in a region where sugarcane can be cultivated.


	21. Chapter 21

The day was warm, but it was not hot enough to warrant a dip in the pond. The earth was dry, so the dirt was not the right consistency to make mudpies. The trees had not yet regrown their leaves yet and it seemed a waste of time to play hide-and-seek if they could not venture up to daring hiding places. No one thought to bring their marbles or their dolls or their blocks to play with and since Mister Balin’s makeshift schoolroom was all locked up, there was no way to obtain paper and ink for drawing. In short, the dwarflings of the Ered Luin were bored and boredom among that group nearly always led to trouble.

“We could go down the counting house,” Bilfur suggested listlessly, spinning in place. “Toss rocks at the windows an’ see how long it takes Mister Glóin to chase us off.”

“He’s not there,” his sister said. “I were at the shop with Ma and he got himself done up fine. Only dwarves as are there now would tell on us.”

“I wish the forge was open,” Fíli lamented. He’d undone one of his braids and was throwing his hair bead to see how high he could make it go before he couldn’t catch it one-handed. “Mam don’t chase us off so long’s were quiet and don’t touch nothing.”

“I’m tired of stupid old Dáin and his stupid old friends,” Kíli huffed crossly, sticking out his lower lip. “I want them to back where they come from so’s everything’s put to rights. I’d even go to lessons and not give Mister Balin no trouble. I miss ‘em all, they got to spend all day in them halls and don’t got no time for us after and they _shout_ at each other something awful. S’all Mister Dáin’s fault and I hate him.”

“He gave you them fine knives,” Bilfur pointed out, flopping on the ground and squinting at the sky. “Oof. Oughtn’t have done that. Me head’s swimming.”

Kíli did not hear the warning in his friend’s voice, only the promise of distraction. Flinging his arms around him, he spun and spun until he lost his balance and toppled over. “We can’t even take ‘em out! Mam locked mine away and said after what happened with the ponies that they isn’t baubles as wee dwarflings can carry as playthings.”

“We didn’t even get to pat the ponies!” Cat reminded them of that awful day with a wail of dismay as she flopped down on the ground beside Kíli. “Nor feed ‘em or nothing! I had an apple to give ‘em and all ‘fore we got arrested!”

“We weren’t arrested,” Ori pointed out - he had been reassured of the fact that he was not a wanted dwarf a dozen times in half as many hours by his mother.

Catla folded her arms and glared hard at Ori, who swallowed and looked away. “Still wasn’t fair,” she grumbled. “T’was the unfairest thing as ever happened in me whole life.”

“Fíli still don’t have his back yet,” Kíli informed her and Cat’s mouth dropped open in a show of extreme outrage on Fíli’s behalf.

“I’ll get it back ere long,” he kicked a pebble along a few inches on the ground. “Don’t jabber on about it.”

Bilfur sat up, got a rush of blood to his head and lay back down again. “Where is it?”

“Still with them guardsmen,” Kíli replied, rolling onto his stomach. “Mam said she’d ask for ‘em, but she keeps forgetting.”

For a few seconds, no one said anything, stewing as they were in the unfairness of the world at large and the new discovery that there was only so many times a body could spin in place before one’s head and tummy protested. Then Catla broke the silence.

“We ought to fetch ‘em for you, Fíli,” she declared decisively. “Your Ma’s busy and there’s nothing better to do anyway.”

The reaction of her fellows was just as decisive.

“What?!” Ori squeaked in alarm. “No! We can’t! This time we’ll _definitely_ be arrested and Dori will be _so cross.”_

“No, I’m putting my foot down,” Bilfur shouted and his words may have had more of an impact if he was actually standing as he spoke. “I’m not going _near_ them Eastern folks. No way, no how.”

“We’ll catch such a smacking!” Fíli exclaimed, placing his hands protectively over his bottom, just in case his mother was not actually in the interior of the mountain, but was lurking in the bushes, ready to come out and give him bum a thwap.

“Mam said she’d get it and she’d get it,” Kíli shook his head. “We’re not ‘lowed to play with them anyhow.”

Catla put her hands on her hips and glared at them. “What? Are you afeared?”

“Aye!” the boys chorused as one.

She threw her arms in her air and wailed her lament to the heavens. It was a wonder the Maker in his celestial forge didn’t peek his head out from among the clouds to tell her to hush and a minor miracle that no one came out of their shops to see what the trouble was.

“You’re all _cowards!_ Go on, then! Go run off to Uncle Bifur and Lúfi and Alfur, if you want to be _babies!_ I don’t waste me time with babies.”

Spinning on her heel, Catla stomped away from them all. Her elder brother jumped up and called after her, “Where’re you going?”

“To fetch Fíli’s dagger,” she shouted, not looking back at them. “An’ I’m of a mind to make it mine - finder’s keepers!”

Catla ran off down the road and with a cry of dismay, Fíli was right on her heels, Bilfur and Kíli chasing off behind him. Ori stood uncertainly alone on the hillside for a half-second longer before he ran off in hot pursuit of his friends. As much as he did not want to face Dori’s wrath or worry his mother, the fact remained that Nori was home now; surely if they were arrested he would be able to break them out.

* * *

“I wonder if my mother’s gotten that letter yet,” Onar pondered aloud. He and Jari had been put back on pony duty - which was a step up from their temporary roles as stableboys. He was convinced he’d need to shave his head to get the smell of horse dung out of his hair.

Jari smiled at him and patted his arm reassuringly. “Nah, hasn’t been enough time. It’ll be another week, at least, and by the time she stops seeing red and writes back, we’ll be on the road again! You mightn’t even get it at all before we get back.”

Onar groaned and smacked the flat of his hand against his forehead. “That’s even worse! For she’ll be even angrier that I haven’t written back!”

Jari could think of nothing to say to comfort his friend. He knew Ona well, she was a warrior in her own right, though one who did not travel far from home, there had never been the need. He highly doubted that she would actually _kill_ her son for his conduct, but one could never be sure. Onar had both a little brother _and_ a little sister and while _he_ would never define his dear friend as ‘expendable’ he still did not envy his position upon returning home having insulted the heirs to the thrown of Erebor and their own liegelord while bringing shame and dishonor upon his family in front of some of the most important Dwarves the world over.

Jari was the youngest in his family and often accorded leniency by his parents that his elder brothers liked to lament was a result of their mother and father growing soft with age. At least, in his work Jari didn’t have a long, proud family history to uphold; his father was a sculptor and his mother a goldsmith. He was the only one of his family to train for the Guard in two generations and though they might be disappointed that he had not covered himself in glory on this journey, he didn’t have as much to fear from them as Onar did from his mother.

“What I feel worse about,” Jari said, in an attempt to change the subject, “is that we haven’t been able to make a proper apology. Or give the little yellow-haired one his dagger back. Was that was called Fíli?”

“No, Kíli, the elder one is absolutely Kíli,” Onar said confidently. “And I _know_ Ama will bring that up, ‘I hope you apologized to the wee bairns!’ and how am I to say, ‘I wanted to, ma’am, but I like my head where it is and Lady Sigdís’ll probably have it mounted as a trophy if I get within a foot of her children again.’”

Jari’s hand drifted to his own neck nervously. The Lady Sigdís was every bit as fine and terrifying as he assumed she’d be and King Thorin...well, if looks could kill neither of them would have to worry about the tongue-lashings they were sure to catch back home. Gulping he suggested, “We could write a note? Give it to your father, see if he’d pass it along. They could read it or toss it on the fire, but at least it’d show we’re sorry, whether they accept it or not.”

“Hey now, that’s not half bad,” Onar said contemplatively, twirling the braid that hung off his chin around his fingers. “Not even a quarter bad - have you got a pen? Some ink?”

“Not on me,” Jari spread his empty hands and shrugged. “But once we’re let off duty to eat we can - hey! You there!”

A small body in a patched tunic and dusty boots was hauling itself over the paddock fence, having approached unseen while the guardsmen were hashing out their plan to make amends to the house of Erebor. Hair as thin and light as cornsilk fluttered in the breeze as the girl jumped off the highest rung. She regarded the two guards for one breathless moment - then _charged_ brandishing what appeared to be a stick as if it was a dagger.

It was a mark of how long hours of drudgery for ungrateful beasts of burden could change a person. Rather than draw their swords and charge back, Onar and Jari just looked at the tiny figure, assessed the pudging limbs, the scowl upon the round face and realized that this was not a threat that merited the use of violence.

 _Don’t just use your axes,_ Lothar counseled them upon informing them of their demotion earlier that week. _Use your heads._

And so they so they did not charge the dwarfling to halt in the name of Lord Dáin of the Iron Hills. They did not run around trying to snatch the little lass up off the grass. They stood stock still and let her batter them around the shins with her stick as they exchanged panicked glances.

“What do we do?” Jari asked, shifting out of the way just in time to avoid a hard strike on the bum.

“I don’t know!” Onar cried, then cringed when the little thing cracked him across the left knee. She was one of the children that he and Jari had captured that awful day and it seemed she had reinforcements. A whole gaggle of lads, including the little princes, were scaling the fence, calling out to their very agitated friend whose name appeared to be Catla, or perhaps, ‘CATLANO!’ which was what the other children shouted in her general direction.

The lass had some demands, as it turned out and she punctuated each word with a swing at Onar and Jari’s legs.

“Give.” _Thwack._ “Me.” _Smack._ “Friend.” _Wham._ “What’s.” _Bam._ “His!”

The final blow never landed, Onar decided that he’d had enough of his boots getting scuffed and so snatched the stick out of the dwarfling’s hands, holding it high in the air above her head. Miss Catla would not be deterred; she started punching his legs and would have gone on until his knees gave out had not another boy, taller than her with twin red plaits come up behind her and snatched her off her feet. The girl still fought like a wild thing and the pair of them fell over backwards onto the grass, Catla thrashing the whole way down.

“We’re sorry, sirs,” the elder, yellow-haired prince that Onar earlier identified as Kíli apologized with wide, nervous eyes. “She’s mad! And only sort-of kin, so’s you needn’t be telling my uncle or Ma about it.”

“They’re thieves!” the little girl howled. The younger, dark-haired prince who must have been Fíli seemed to want to help the red haired boy contain the little hellion for he sat on top of her and tried his best to keep her clawing little hands from pulling his hair. “They stole your dagger, Fíli and got no mind to give it back!”

Oh. Or the golden-haired boy was Fíli and the other was Kíli. In any case, the boys’ names did not matter, not really, not if Jari and Onar botched another encounter with the dwarflings and brought the wrath of their mother and uncle upon themselves for the second time. This time ONar was not as concerned about his mother killing him; his father would do the job for her and bring his remains home in a snuffbox if he was even accorded the honor of a proper burial.

“Oh, no!” Jari exclaimed, his hands before him supplicatingly. “No, no, not at all! I’ve been meaning to give it back, I never wanted to keep it! Only your lady mother has little cause to come to the stables, I am sure! Not that she wouldn’t be welcome! But...but...do you know what? It’s in my room. I’ll fetch it! Just...wait here!”

And before Onar could grab him or curse him and call him a traitor for leaving him alone with five children, one of whom proved herself very violent (she’d make a fine warrior someday, a distant part of his mind told him and he hoped he never faced her in combat), Jari was hopping the paddock fence and kicking up dust with his boots. It was nothing short of mutiny.

“Er…” he said, looking around at the assembled children somewhat helplessly. “He’ll be back in a trice, I’m sure.”

“It’s alright,” Fíli said with a miserable, resigned look on his face. “We don’t want to cause no trouble. You can keep it.”

There was something awful about looking at the child’s downturned mouth, his slumped shoulders. This was a lad used to not getting his way, Onar realized in a brief flash of insight. Not about big things, like meals or affection, but little things. Treats and the life. The young guardsman could not quite put his finger on it, but something in the boy’s expression screamed to him, clear as day, _I knew it was too good to be true._

“I don’t want it!” Onar protested, trying to sound reassuring. If it was his own wee brother looking so sad, he’d want someone to make him feel better, even if they were near-strangers. “Neither does he, on my honor, lad. We would’ve brought it back to you only we’re frightened of your mother.”

He hadn’t meant to phrase it _quite_ that way, but Onar was a dwarf and dwarves were honest by nature, some might say to a fault. His confession got the wee ones smiling at least and Kíli actually giggled.

“Mam?” he asked. “Not _our_ Mam. She’s the best Mam that ever was!”

“Hey!” Catla and Bilfur cried indignantly. “That’s not so! _Ours_ is!”

Ori scuffed his toes in the grass and chimed in softly, “No, mine is. And your amad’s scarier than mine.”

“Is not,” Fíli rolled his eyes. “She’s not the least bit. She’d only hurt someone as deserves it, eh, Kíli?”

“Aye,” his little brother nodded firmly. “If you isn’t a bad sort, you got nothing to worry over...are _you_ a bad sort?”

This last was aimed at Onar with particular interest. He smiled a little and shrugged. “I don’t think so, but your Ama might disagree. Or maybe you’re just braver than me - I saw you stealing food off Dwalin Fundinul’s plate at the welcoming feast, I wouldn’t _dare.”_

“Oh! Mister Dwalin’s the nicest fellow there is!” Catla perked up. Her cheeks were rosy from her prior exertion and she looked like a wee precious cherub as she wiggled out from under her brother and Kíli’s grasps to sit placidly in the grass. Crafty, that one, for she looked nothing like the whirling dervish of destruction that attacked a few minutes ago. “He gives the best ponyback rides!”

“No, Uncle Thorin does,” Fíli informed her. “He does the noises and all.”

“No, Mam does, she runs the fastest,” Kíli countered.

“You’re _all_ wrong!” Bilfur declared, rolling his eyes. “Uncle _Bofur’s_ the best pony - and he’s faster than your Ma!”

Fíli and Kíli rounded on their friend furiously, “Is not!”

“Is so!”

“Is not!”

“Is so!”  
Ori watched the back and forth exchange, braids whipping into his face as he tried to keep track of who was shouting. By not participating in the argument, he happened to have one ear open when Onar tried to calm them down asking, “Would any of you like to ride a _real_ pony?” and raised his hand silently as the other four bickered.

Onar whistled and a brown and white spotted pony trotted over to his side, standing by patiently as the children squabbled over whose uncle made the better whinnying sound. They only stopped fighting when Ori was lifted over their heads and onto the pony’s back.

“Ey!” Kíli cried, “How come Ori gets to go first? I didn’t know we was getting rides.”

“Because I asked and he answered,” Onar replied evenly. Glancing from the pony to the dwarflings, he added, “Room for one more though - hands up, no shouting!”

Cat jumped up and down with both arms raised, teeth clamped down on her tongue to keep from exclaiming aloud. A little wary of her, Onar hesitated before he picked her up, but she was all smiles and laughter now that her improvised weapon had been taken away. He settled her in back of Ori and she craned her head to get a better look at the pony’s face. “What’s her name?”

“Willow,” Onar replied. “Now, you three go stand by the fence and I’ll give a shout when you can have your turn, alright?”

That seemed agreeable to the boys and so Bilfur, Fíli and Kíli perched atop the paddock fence, shouting and waving as Onar led their companions around the paddock on ponyback. Ori was grinning from ear to ear and Catla only stopped laughing to complain that they were not going _nearly_ fast enough to suit her.

Both Fíli and Kíli had a turn and Catla was begging to be allowed again and faster this time and she ought to go twice since she didn’t want Bili to be by himself (despite Bilfur stating that he was very happy having the pony to himself and _get off_ Cat!) when some of the dignitaries emerged from the interior of the mountain to breathe fresh air and stretch their legs away from the council halls.

Kíli’s sharp eyes spotted her first.

“MAM!” he shouted, balancing atop the fencepost and waving frantically. Dís was up the hill like a shot and not a second too soon; Kíli lost his balance and tumbled off the fence into her arms the moment she reached him. Her face was all worry for an instant, but her youngest son grinned at her and pointed to Onar who was frozen with his hand on Willow’s neck. “Mister Onar’s been letting us ride the ponies, I think ‘cos he’s frightened of you. We’ve been having such fun, you ought to frighten more folks for us!”

“Aye, Missus Dís,” Catla nodded her agreement. “Go on and scare the milkmaid so she gives us free cream!”

Dís’s mouth twitched once before she lost all composure and laughed aloud. “Ah, lass,” she said, setting Kíli back down on his feet. “I don’t think _anything_ could fright the milkmaid, me least of all!”

“I don’t think you’re frightening, Missus Dís,” Ori reassured her sweetly. Then, climbing up on the fence so he could whisper in her ear, “I think Mister Onar is just a little nervous.”

Ruffling his hair, Dís laughed again, “That he is, Ori, m’lad, but with good reason.”

Thorin seemed far less goodhumored as he looked Onar up and down with badly disguised distaste. “Where’s your companion?”

“Here!” Jari’s voice broke as he ran into the broad back of Dwalin Fundinul and he squeaked and jumped a mile, nearly dropping the small cloth-wrapped bundle in his hand. Standing at attention, then falling into a low bow he stammered, “Apologies, my lord! Deepest, deepest apologies!”

Dwalin thought about letting the lad remain in that pose until his back seized ( _It would serve the brash young pup right,_ an unkind voice in his head sneered), but Catla did not misspeak when she dubbed him the ‘Nicest Fellow There Is.’ Rather than prolonging the boy’s anxiety, he just waved a hand and said, “Apology accepted, up you get, lad.”

But Jari was right back to bowing the moment he spotted Dís and Thorin, “My lady, my lord.” Then, spotting Balin and Glóin bringing up the rear added, “My lord, my lord. I, erm. Had something. Of young Prince Fíli’s that I’ve meant to return and I apologize deeply,” here he bowed yet again, holding the dagger out for Dís to take, “for my absentmindedness. And my foolishness and my poor conduct during our first...unhappy meeting.”

Onar vaulted the fence and tripped over his feet to bow just as low as his comrade. “And I myself am deeply, _deeply_ sorry. For my poor judgment and conduct toward you and yours. And I humbly beg - ”

“Me too!” Jari interjected. “I also humbly beg your indulgence and your pardon and - ”

“Your forgiveness,” Onar finished. “Please.”

Thorin and Dís exchanged a significant look between them.

“What do you think?” Thorin asked his sister.

Dís stroked her chin contemplatively. “It’s a very pretty apology. But I suppose we were the less deeply wronged - what do you lot say? Are they forgiven?”

In imitation of her posture, Fíli and Kíli both drew their fingers and thumbs over their largely hairless chins and made contemplative ‘hmming’ sounds that Glóin would later swear was a _perfect_ imitation of Balin.

“Aye,” Fíli said a scant second later. “I forgive them. How ‘bout you, Kíli?”

“Me too!” his younger brother agreed. “And he brought your dagger back and all.”

Dís nodded, then addressed the other assembled dwarflings. “And what do you lot say? Forgiven?”

Ori nodded and smiled, “Forgiven! Mister Onar let us ride the ponies.”

“I still haven’t had a go,” Bilfur pointed out crossly. “I’ll forgive them once I’ve had my turn.”

“I forgive ‘em,” Catla nodded, satisfied. “I gave ‘em what-for, Missus Dís. A real routing!”

“Did you now?” Dís asked, delighted, leaning down to take Catla’s face in her hands so she could kiss her forehead. “That’s a girl! Right after my own heart.”

“I suppose there’s nothing else for it,” Thorin decreed imperiously to Jari and Onar who raised their heads hopefully. “You’re forgiven - after Master Bilfur has his turn, of course.”

The pair straightened up and ran off to attend to Master Bilfur who seemed pleased as punch to be the recipient of so much undivided attention. Now that there were more hands around the paddock, each of the children was granted another turns around the available royal mounts and they were all so pleased that not a one of them bothered to point out that Fíli’s earlier reports of gilded hooves had been a load of dung.

When the low toll of the bells from inside the mountain called their guardians back to work, the children, after thanking Jari and Onar nicely, made their way down the hill to the heart of the village all the way back to Thyra’s bakery. There, they regaled the dwarrowdam with stories of their adventures as they stuffed themselves full of meat pasties.

Thyra daubed at their messy faces with a napkin and brushed their tunics clean with a smile. It seemed her brother-in-law’s favorite phrase had some merit after all and not for the first time she blessed the family she had married into for their wisdom. _Everything will turn out alright in the end. And if it’s not alright, it’s not the end._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The 'Ur family likes to quote feel-good movies about British retirees. There is nothing wrong with that (to clarify - the 'Ur family motto comes from _The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel_ ). Almost done, folks!


	22. Chapter 22

The gathering of the Seven Clans ended far less dramatically than it had begun. By the time the flowers that dotted the rolling hillsides began to make their first tentative creeps toward the light and the door of Thorin’s smithy was pockmarked over with requests for the creation or mending of tools of trade to begin plowing the half-thawed fields in the valleys below, the Dwarves of the Iron Hills were ready to take their leave.

Assuming that their noble cousin would prefer to leave at first light, with all due haste and having made quick, courtly goodbyes at the feast thrown the evening prior to see him off, Dís and Thorin traded their good cloth for homespun, their fine coats for leather aprons and lifted the awning of their smithy for the first time in what felt like forever. 

Thorin let out an audible sigh and Dís smiled when she saw her brother roll his shoulders as if shaking off the weight of the world. “Good to be back, eh?” she asked, taking a rag and wiping dust off the counter of the stall.

“Aye,” he nodded, grabbing her around the shoulders to pull her down that he might kiss the top of her head. “Good to be back.”

A loud holler made them look up as one and they broke out in matching grins when they saw Dwalin making his way down the street toward them, bearing something in his arms wrapped in cloth. 

“My brother’s a damned miser,” Dwalin informed them, setting down what they saw now was a coffee pot, carefully wrapped to keep the heat in on the walk down. “Lucky us, he was so busy getting his ledgers and ink pots out for the bairns he didn’t spare me much thought this morning.”

“You’re a thief and a swindler,” Thorin declared, bustling across the forge to obtain three mostly-unchipped, mostly-clean mugs. “And I love you well for it.”

As Dwalin doled out their allotment of coffee, thick and bitter, Dís lit the forge fire and Thorin tried to organize their order requests by urgency and dates - while making a mental note of the sigils of those who left their family’s symbol, but could not write to send Dís round later to knock on their doors for instructions and apologies for the delay - it seemed like the last few arduous weeks had never happened. In moments like this, Thorin found it almost easy to forget what he was in favor of enjoying _who_ he was.

The illusion was shattered when a cheerful, recently familiar voice hallooed from down the way. Dáin was jogging toward them, sans retainers, dressed for the road. 

“Just wanted to say goodbye again, without all the pomp,” he said, leaning over the stall of the forge with a warm smile. “And to nose about a bit. This is yours, then? I never got the chance to have a look round.”

That was by design, Thorin’s design in particular. He remembered the towering forges of Erebor, the grandeur, the way the finest smiths worked with the most incredible assortment of tools and metals and gems to create objects of exquisite beauty. Dáin would sneer, he was sure, to know that his fine education was being put to use creating plowbolts. But the look on Dáin’s face was the furthest thing from a sneer; indeed he looked almost wistful. 

“Ah, it’ll be good to get back to work,” he sighed. “There were important tasks accomplished here, no doubt, but my throat’s sore from talking and my hands are going soft. No way to be.”

“True enough,” Thorin nodded. With a small smile he added, “A wise fellow of my acquaintance said it better than I could. To craft, you know you live.”

Dáin grinned and bobbed his head knowingly. “Aye. That’s...well, that’s everything, I suppose. Did I meet this wise friend of yours while I was here?”

“No,” Thorin shook his head, imagining Bifur perfectly in his mind’s eye. Either whittling or joining together some little treasure or wrangling his cousin’s children. At least, he hoped it was that, he knew it suited the toymaker’s spirits ill to be confined to bed in a low-lit room and he preferred not to think of him that way. “He’s got a lot on his plate.”

“Next time, then,” Dáin said. “I’ll have to meet him next time - there’ll be a next time, I vow and hopefully it won’t take another twoscore years before I see you again.”

He reached out a hand for Thorin, who took it unhesitatingly. Thorin did stiffen up a bit when Dáin practically hauled him over the counter to embrace him about the shoulders, but he forced himself to relax. It was something Frerin might have done, but Dáin wouldn’t have known that. Couldn’t have known that. And Thorin’s melancholy was not any of his doing. 

“Coffee?” Dís offered, once Dáin released her brother. “Before you go?”

The lad really did have a gold-bright smile. Another trait he shared with Frerin. “That would be much-appreciated, thank you,” he smiled gratefully. “I didn’t bring anyone who can brew coffee worth a damn, though the lads try, bless them.”

They spoke a bit more about nothing in particular. Nothing too personal. Nothing too volatile. Nothing bound to cause upset. Nar did not come up once and Dáin only mentioned that Onar and Jari would be missing the wee ones - especially Miss Catla, who Onar had taken a real shine to - while Dís and Thorin agreed that the children would be sad to miss their riding lessons.

“But don’t go buying them ponies the next time you come to town,” Dís forbade him, but she smiled as she said it and Dáin knew she was teasing. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he informed her. Then winked. “Next time I happen by, they might be big enough for real horses!”

The sun was rising and the fire was hot enough to begin the work day. Dáin drained his mug to the dregs and squinted at the light regretfully. “Well, I can’t put it off any longer - it was good to see you all. I mean it with all my heart.”

“Good seeing you,” Dís replied for all of them, coming around the side door of the forge to give Dáin a brief embrace. “Safe journey. Write us when you’re home, we’ll look forward to hearing from you.”

“I’ll make it my first duty,” he vowed, kissing her cheek. Inclining his head respectfully to Thorin and Dwalin he made his final goodbyes and made his way down the road - stopping once halfway to wave at them all again.

“He’s turned out alright,” Dwalin said once their cousin was out of earshot. “Better than I’d hoped.”

“Aye,” Thorin agreed, though the shadows never lifted from his eyes completely. “He’s a good sort.”

“He is,” Dís echoed, then clapped her hands together briskly and said, “Well, let’s get to it! I don’t know about you, but I’ve been idle _far_ too long.”

And so they went to work. They chattered to fill the quiet when their hammers and tongs were not set to clanging and as day became dusk, they became something like themselves again, found their equilibrium in working their muscles, forming base metal into objects of use and, they hoped, a little beauty. Dís and Dwalin argued playfully, Thorin scolded them both and the two of them turned on him and teased him until he was laughing so hard he couldn’t file straight anymore. 

It wasn’t long before it was time to close up shop for the day, a fact announced by both the setting sun and twin cries of, “Mam! Uncle Thorin! Mister Dwalin!” sounding down the road.

Each of the lads was holding Balin by the hand and the three of them walked at a quick clip down to the forge just as Thorin doused the fire. 

“Hello, lovies,” Dís kissed them each as she knelt in the dirt outside the forge. “What have you learned today?”

They spoke at once and so loudly as to be unintelligible. She looked up at Balin who smiled a little abashedly and said, “They spoke of nothing but ponies and so we much of the day to the finer points of riding.”

“Finer points?” Dwalin snorted, “That’s a lark - don’t either of you mind a word he said, for Mister Balin’s as poor a rider as ever sat astride a beast. If you want a _real_ lesson, I think your uncle could spare me tomorrow - ”  
“I could not,” Thorin replied at once. “Not for such a cause as that. I’d sooner leave the forging to you and the riding to me, I’m the worthier instructor.”

“You?” Dwalin asked incredulously, eyes popping out of his head. “You! Never. It’s a falsehood and a slander and I won’t stand for that.”

“Slander, is it?” Thorin replied imperiously. “Funny that. There’s a cliffside in the Misty Mountains and a pile of pony bones that’ll vouch for me.”

Mister Dwalin hemmed and hawed, but seemed to have nothing to say in reply. Fíli and Kíli giggled at their uncle and cousin behind their hands as their mother’s eyes lit up and she said, “Oh! I’d forgotten about the time you killed your pony.”

“The _fall_ killed the pony,” Dwalin rolled his eyes testily. Dís rose to her feet and favored him with a saucy look and cheeky smile.

“But you fell on it,” she pointed out innocently. “That didn’t help matters.”

“I also rid you of a troublesome tooth,” Dwalin reminded her. “A show of a bit more gratitude wouldn’t go amiss, lass.”

The petty little argument might have continued until nightfall, but was mercifully cut short by the timely arrival of a party of dwarrows, tall, short, round, thin and everything in between marching up the road. 

“Hope you’re not too stuffed from yesternight!” Bofur greeted them cheerfully. “We’ve brought food.” He gestured to his brother who had Alfur tucked up in one arm and a crate under the other. Thyra came up behind him with Lufi clinging to her coat skirts while she balanced a cloth-covered platter, using her belly for leverage.

“And libations,” Irpa added. Ori was walking along beside her, holding a bottle of wine that was almost as big as he was. She had another two bottles in her hands and Dori and Nori brought up the rear carrying a keg and each complaining that the other was not pulling his own weight. 

“What’s all this?” Dís asked, looking wonderingly at the half-completely feast held by her friends. “What’s the occasion?”

“It’s a reward for a tough couple of weeks,” Thyra replied. 

“And a bribe,” Nori winked. “You’ve got to be hospitable and open your doors if we’ve gone to tall the trouble to bring you supper.”

Thorin folded his arms and did not look altogether pleased. “Are you trying to tell us something?” he asked, brow furrowing. Bringing one’s own food to a gathering could be taken as a sign that the host was more than usually stingy. Unless, of course, the intention was meant to offer a meal in the spirit of gratitude.

“It’s a gift!” Hervor announced, confirming just that. She, her father, her husband, son _and_ in-laws had joined the party, carting along with them what appeared to be several cuts of boar, ready for roasting. 

“A thank-you,” Maeva smiled sweetly.

“For keeping your heads,” Óin informed them, though his eyes were mostly focused on Thorin. “And not starting the first inter-Clan war in seven-hundred years.”

“We know it was a trial for you,” Gróin added wryly. He could only have been talking about his outburst at Dáin and Thorin opened his mouth, ready to defend himself, but his great-uncle clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Don’t think of it. All’s well that ends well, eh? That’s what I’ve always said.”

Glóin laughed so hard he almost dropped Gimli. “You’ve _never_ said that! Give credit where credit’s due, Adad - you were griping the whole way here and only changed your tune when Bifur spoke up about it!”

“We can’t - “ Thorin was just about to beg off the offering which would have been just as rude as bringing victuals, unasked, to a feast when the smell wafting up from Thyra’s tray caught his nose. “Is that raspberry? Wherever did you come by it?”

“Little fairy left a gift on me front step,” she replied, pulling back a corner of the tray to reveal five fruit pies, each topped with a thick buttery crust. “Well, a fairy as calls himself Dáin, Lord of the Iron Hills.”

“Left the bonniest note you ever did see,” Hervor added. “Said he was sore sorry to have caused offense and would the lady of the house _please_ accept his offer as a sign of his lordship’s most heartfelt apology.”

“Next time you’ve a chance to set pen to paper, tell him he’s forgiven a hundred times over,” Thyra said, delighted anticipation shining in her eyes. He bought up a marketplace worth of preserves, cherries, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, apricots, figs - we’ll have our fruit pies and tarts and pasties out afore the Men get to planting and won’t the rest of the bakers in town be green! ‘Course, we thought to try ‘em out first. For quality.” 

Thorin seemed a little overwhelmed by all the generosity and care in evidence around him. “I don’t know…” he said hesitantly, but Dori rolled his eyes and ‘harumphed’ audibly.

“Are we going to stand out here all night? Just say, thank you, Thorin!” he urged impatiently.

“Thank you, Thorin,” the smith-king replied tartly and Dís decided that was permission enough to hie home fast as she could to build up the fire and set out chairs enough for most of their number. 

The food was excellent, the drink superb and the company unsurpassed. Dís and Thorin’s little apartment did not have all the trimmings and trappings of the royal halls of the Ered Luin, but none assembled would trade one for the other that night. 

Irpa and her family were the first to go, mostly at Dori’s urging. He was an early-to-bed, early-to-rise sort and was trying to teach Ori to mimic his ways. Nori would have stayed, but Ori sleepily protested that he wanted _Nori_ to carry him home and he couldn’t refuse. Soon thereafter Bombur and Thyra left with their brood and Bifur and Bofur were quick to follow, along with Gróin and Maeva who accompanied Vigg, Hervor and Gimli back to their flat. 

Óin, who’d pulled out a pouch of tobacco and a pipe, would have gone with them, but he saw the longing look on Thorin’s face when he made his preparations to smoke and said he’d be along presently. Góin stayed behind as well, along with Balin and Dwalin and it seemed they’d be making a very late night of it indeed when Fíli and Kíli, possibly spurred on by all of the sugar in the pies, demanded that they play a game.

“Draughts!” Fili cried, once he’d liberated the granite playing board out from its banishment beneath his uncle’s bed. “I want Mister Glóin as my partner!”

“No fair!” Kili wailed, clutching the bag of black and white pieces to his chest. “He’s the _best_. If you get Mister Glóin, I want Mister Balin!”

“It’d be my honor, laddie,” Balin assured him, sitting down on the rug before the hearth and giving Kíli a wink. “Let’s give them a routing they won’t soon forget, eh?”

“Now remember, Fíli m’lad, in the interest of not making Mister Balin fall to weeping,” Glóin said as he sat with the elder boy on his lap. “Let’s not beat them too easily.”

“Excuse me,” Dís cleared her throat when Dwalin settled into her customary chair by the fire. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

Dwalin smiled up at her and spread his arms invitingly. “Room for two, I think.”

There was not, but Dís needed no further coaxing. She practically leapt into his lap, shifting off slightly when she saw Dwalin cringe. “Sorry! Did I hit summat important?”

“No, it’s...hang on, move over a minute - aha!” After a moment of shifting, Dwalin removed a well-crafted stout pipe from where it had been stuck in the cushion of the chair behind him. With a bark of laughter he lobbed it at Thorin’s head and cried, “Ha! Just when you don’t need it, eh?”

It was indeed Thorin’s pipe and as he caught it with a disbelieving look on his face, with a mutter of, “But I looked _everywhere,”_ Glóin glanced up and shook his head.

“That could’ve gone a bit different, I’ll wager,” he stated. “If you had a little something for your nerves.”

“I’ll be sure to leave it somewhere we won’t forget it, next time we clean house,” Dís vowed, settling down quite comfortably in Dwalin’s lap. He had his arms clasped loosely around her waist and she lowered her head to rest atop his, hiding a yawn behind her hand. 

Oin handed Thorin the tobacco pouch and grunted, “Here. You need this more than I do.”

“Mister Gloin!” Kíli tugged at his beard and gestured to the board. “Mister Balin just took two of our pieces! Is that allowed?”

As Thorin packed and lit his pipe, breathing in a soothing lungful of smoke that tasted of spice and vanilla, he took a moment to look around the room. His sister and dearest friend were practically dozing before the fire. His nephews were sprawled on the hearth rug with two of the finest minds, mathematical and diplomatic, that the Lonely Mountain had ever boasted. And his cousin the miracle worker was waiting impatiently to have a smoke of his own as the smell of their impromptu feast faded in the air. A simple pleasure, but simple pleasures were all they could afford these days.

Aye, Thorin reflected as he exhaled. He did need this. More than he could say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End! For now, trust me, there is still plenty left to say about the exile in the Ered Luin. Stay tuned!


End file.
